(ANSA) - Rome, June 1 - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday he was "not against" Italy's proposed floating migrant hotspots "but there are legal questions that must be taken into consideration".
He said "we are always open to discussing and meditating the proposals...of my good friend (Premier Matteo) Renzi". He said: "I'm not saying No and I'm not saying Yes. I am reflecting and that should not be a surprise". Italy has proposed putting asylum seeker registration and identification centres (the hotspots) on board ships in the Mediterranean but some rights groups have said they might not be legal under international law.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Wednesday turned down a call from Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) Secretary-General Msgr Nunzio Galantino for Italy to take in all refugees and migrants. "We are world champions of humanity and welcome," Alfano said. "I understand Msgr Galantino's words, as a bishop, but I'm the interior minister and I have the duty to make sure people respect the law: we have a big heart but we can't take them all".
Earlier Galantino, CEI No.2 behind its president, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, had said all migrants should be taken in and criticised the Italian government's proposal to the EU to have so-called "floating hotspots" in which migrants would be registered at sea, on ships in the Mediterranean.
"(Floating) hotspots are a bad-copy remake of detention centres," Galantino told Italian daily La Repubblica, adding that on ships it would not be possible to ensure the right to seek asylum. "It's unthinkable to use rescue ships for stationing thousands of people in the Mediterranean awaiting an unknown location, unless you want to take them back to Libya and Egypt, sentencing them to new types of exploitation," he said. Galantino called migrant deaths at sea "a slap in the face to European democracy".
"Unfortunately there wasn't the courage to create humanitarian corridors, provided for by international law, towards countries willing to host (migrants), to encourage safe passage and avoid violence, exploitation and deaths".
Galantino said the CEI is following Pope Francis's September 6 Angelus appeal to welcome migrants by proposing 1,000 "micro-projects" to assist migrants in their countries of origin in cooperation with Catholic NGOs and Italy-based international Christian volunteer federation FOCSIV.
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