Italy not ‘Europe’s refugee camp’: minister
ROME: Italy will no longer be ‘‘Europe’s refugee camp’’, newly installed Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said yesterday as he promised tough action to reduce migrant arrivals and send back those who have already come.
Salvini, head of the rightwing League and a deputy prime minister in the eurosceptic coalition, has made curbing immigration a clarion call of his party, whose popularity is rising fast in opinion polls.
Two days after the Government was sworn in on Saturday, Salvini headed for Sicily, the main port of call for more than 600,000 migrants who have arrived on Italy’s shores from north Africa since 2014.
The League says the vast majority of them have no right to refugee status, Italy cannot afford to help them and, by accepting low pay, they worsen the working conditions of Italians.
Salvini kept up the pressure yesterday, saying Italy ‘‘can’t be transformed into a refugee camp’’ and vowing to lobby Italy’s partners to obtain more EU assistance to handle the problem.
‘‘It’s clear and obvious that Italy has been abandoned. Now we have to see facts,’’ he said when asked about comments from German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Europe needs a new approach on immigration.
He later tweeted: ‘‘Either Europe gives us a hand in making our country secure, or we will choose other methods.’’
After at least 48 migrants were killed at the weekend when their boat sank off Tunisia’s coast, Salvini said there was no reason for people to be fleeing Tunisia, which was ‘‘a free and democratic country’’.
He accused Tunisia of ‘‘exporting its convicts’’ to Italy. The foreign ministry in Tunis called in Italy’s ambassador to complain, and expressed ‘‘deep surprise’’ at Salvini’s comments.
An Ipsos opinion poll published on Sunday, showed support for the League rose to 28.5% from 17% at the March 4 election. It stands just 1.6 points behind its coalition partner, the more leftleaning 5Star Movement, whose support has slipped slightly since it took 32.7% at the election. — Reuters