Italy takes a hard line over asylum reforms

Rome’s new government pledges to work with Hungary to ‘change the rules of European Union’

ITALY’S Eurosceptic, populist government last night pledged to work with the authoritarian prime minister of Hungary to “change the rules” of the European Union. In what could emerge as a new axis between Rome and the so-called Visegrad group of Eastern European nations, Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister, said he looked forward to working with Viktor Orban.

“We’ll work to change the rules of the European Union,” said Mr Salvini, also deputy prime minister and head of the hard-right League party, which is in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

It came as Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s new prime minister, laid out his government agenda, which risks putting it on a collision course with Europe. Mr Conte vowed to review EU sanctions against Russia and called for swift and obligatory resettlement of migrants.

Mr Salvini and Mr Orban may share a nativist, anti-migrant agenda, but they differ on one key point – Italy wants migrants within its borders to be shared around the EU, something Mr Orban vehemently opposes.

Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have rebelled against previous attempts by Brussels to enforce mandatory migrant quotas. They flatly refused to accept any migrants despite an EU plan to relocate 160,000 migrants among member states following the 2015 refugee crisis.

Calling for an overhaul of the Dublin regulation where migrants must apply for asylum in the first country they reach, Mr Conte said: “We will seek to set up an automatic, obligatory system to redistribute asylum seekers.”

Italy has received more than 700,000 migrants in the last five years and Mr Salvini has declared that the country will no longer tolerate being “Europe’s refugee camp”.

Europe’s divisions over the migration crisis were laid bare yesterday after another attempt to reform asylum policy ended in deadlock in Luxembourg.

The proposed reforms satisfied neither the front line Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Greece, nor countries in Eastern Europe. Italy voted against reforms, along with Spain and several Eastern European states.

Mr Salvini hailed it as a victory: “It’s not true that it’s not possible to influence European policies,” he declared.

Helene Fritzon, the migration minister for Sweden, which has taken more than its share of migrants since 2015, said the chance of compromise had receded after Right-wing gains in elections in Italy and Slovenia. “It is a harder political climate in Europe today,” she said.

The reforms included more financial support for crisis situations and relocation of asylum seekers only as a last resort. Eastern EU states would have the “flexibility” to reduce the numbers of migrants allotted.

Asylum reform “is dead,” said Theo Francken, Belgium’s hardline migration minister.