Italy summons Austrian envoy over threat to close border

ITALY summoned Austria’s ambassador yesterday after Vienna threatened to send troops to the border over the migrant crisis, as the influx to Europe across the Mediterranean topped 100 000 for this year.

Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil had on Monday said Austria would close its border with Italy and send soldiers to guard it if there was no slowdown in arrivals.

Announcing that arrivals had passed the 100 000 mark so far this year, the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said nearly 2 250 people had died so far this year attempting to make the perilous crossing in rickety boats.

Italy has taken in nearly 85% of this year’s arrivals -- most of them sub-Saharan Africans crossing from Libya -- and has pleaded for help from other European Union nations, saying it is struggling to cope.

“The reception of rescued migrants cannot be seen as an issue only for Italy, but a matter for Europe as a whole,” IOM chief William Lacy Swing said, appealing for the rest of the EU to show more solidarity.

On Sunday, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti called on EU neighbours to open their ports to rescue ships picking up migrants, after issuing a drastic threat to close its own ports to the boats.

But France rejected that idea, with an aide to Minniti’s counterpart Gerard Collomb saying this would only encourage more migrants to set sail.

EU interior ministers are due to meet in Estonia’s capital Tallinn tomorrow to discuss the migrant crisis in a bid to defuse a long-running row over spreading asylum seekers across the bloc.

The EU put in place a policy in 2015 to distribute about 160 000 asylum-seekers across different countries.

But only about 20 000 have been relocated from Italy and Greece under the scheme, while Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic have flatly refused to take part.

Ministers meeting in Tallinn will also discuss a code of conduct for charities operating rescue boats in the Mediterranean.

Separately, foreign ministers from European and African countries affected by the crisis will meet in Rome tomorrow with representatives of the EU and UN as part of a diplomatic push to stem the influx.

In an interview with France’s Figaro newspaper, European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos called yesterday for EU countries to speed up deportations of failed asylum seekers to ease the pressure.

The UN figures show that between January 1 and July 3, more than 85 000 migrants landed in Italy, nearly 9 300 in Greece, nearly 6 500 in Spain and more than 270 in Cyprus.

“We are under enormous pressure,” Minniti said at the weekend.