Vita gazette – The refugee crisis in the European Union (EU) continues. France suspends the reception of 3,500 refugees from Italy. This was announced by the French Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin. And Paris locks up the borders 500 border agents.

It is a diplomatic crisis between Rome and Paris on the Ocean Viking. The French Minister of the Interior grants the port of Toulon to the humanitarian ship. But he attacks the government for the choice not to authorize the landing: “There will be extremely serious consequences for our bilateral relations,” he threatens. And he announces the immediate suspension of the reception of 3,500 refugees currently in Italy, asking “all other participants in the European mechanism, in particular Germany, to do the same”. There are also measures to strengthen controls at the internal borders with Italy.

The Ocean Viking will be welcomed in France, in the military port of Toulon, where it will arrive on Friday at eight in the morning. Which, however, at the same time opened a diplomatic crisis to all effects with the government of Giorgia Meloni, attacking Italy for the “incomprehensible choice not to respond to the various requests for assistance addressed by the ship, despite being without any possible dispute in the Italian search and rescue area”. And he warns: “It is clear that there will be extremely serious consequences for bilateral and European relations”. On board the ship of the NGO Sos Méditerranée, which is now heading to Toulon from the waters east of Corsica, there are 231 migrants, including 14 women and 57 minors, the youngest just three years old. Darmanin explained that a third of them will be welcomed in France, a third will go to Germany and the rest to “other European countries that have expressed their willingness to contribute”. But he specified that “people who do not have the right to stay and asylum in our territory will be subjected to removal procedures without delay.”

“The management of migratory flows in the Mediterranean is a European problem that concerns us all and requires a European response,” argued the minister. “A solidarity mechanism had been set up with Italy, under the French presidency, precisely to deal with this type of situation. It provides for the relocation of refugees from European countries of first access, in order to respond to international law and the law of the sea. It is the Italian government that will lose because we were committed to Germany to relocate 3,500 people by the summer of 2023, people who would have arrived in Italy, under maritime law. If we welcome these 234 migrants, we will not relocate any of the people we were committed to welcoming in the coming weeks”, he stresses. France, he adds, will adopt in the next few hours “measures to strengthen controls at our internal borders with Italy”. Anticipating that Paris “will organize in the coming days, with the European Commission, and with Germany, a meeting that will define – in full respect of international law – a framework that will allow us to draw the consequences of the Italian attitude and better regulate the actions of rescue at sea by NGO ships in the Mediterranean.”

Piantedosi: Why only Italy?

The reactions of the Italian political authorities arrive immediately. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi. “The reaction that France is having in the face of the request to welcome 234 migrants – when Italy welcomed 90 thousand this year alone – is totally incomprehensible in the face of the constant calls for solidarity due to these people”, he attacks. But, he adds, “it also demonstrates how firm and determined the posture of other nations in the face of illegal immigration is. What we do not understand is why Italy should willingly accept something that others are not willing to accept.”

They impose on Italy

In Italy, recalls the owner of the Interior Ministry, “this year almost 90 thousand people have landed. Thirteen European countries have pledged to relocate a total of about eight thousand people, less than a tenth. Up to now a total of 117 have been relocated (0.13% of the arrivals), of which 38 in France (0.04%). In the face of these inadequate relocations, we want to impose the principle that Italy is the only possible landing place in Europe for illegal immigrants, thus determining a significant increase in the flow of entries in the last three years. European solidarity is being heralded but Italy has so far faced this problem alone and our reception system is in very serious difficulty,” remarks Piantedosi, who on November 16 at 11.45 will hold urgent information about ships of migrants.

“It is therefore evident,” concludes Piantedosi, “that Italy will not be able to agree to solutions for a European pact that is not adequately balanced between measures of solidarity and responsibility. The countries of first entry cannot, in fact, alone bear the burden of exclusive responsibility in managing the flows. Therefore, we continue to argue that the most serious solution is to work together to stop departures from North Africa,” he concludes.

Tajani: Nowhere is it written that they all must come to us

Even the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking to the press in Brussels, defines the French reaction as “disproportionate”: “We continue to work and defend the reasons of Italy: it is not written anywhere that they all must come to us. We are ready to welcome but it is not that we must open the borders anyway. We must face the issue with great serenity but we must defend the interests of Italy “, he declares.