Salvini says ready to occupy hotels to stop migrants

(ANSA) - Rome, April 14 - Northern League leader Matteo Salvini said Tuesday that his party was ready to occupy hotels to prevent them being taken up by migrants after the central government said it was seeking more rooms to help cope with the thousands of refugees arriving on Italy's coasts from North Africa. "(Interior Minister Angelino) Alfano and (Premier Matteo) Renzi are looking for beds for another 6,500 migrants," Salvini said on his Facebook page. "We call on the League's governors, mayors, executive councillors and councillors to say no to every new arrival with every means possible. "We in the League are ready to occupy every hotel, hostel, school or barracks used for supposed refugees".
On Tuesday Salvini also threatened to block parliament unless a controversial pension reform passed in 2012 under then labour minister Elsa Fornero is changed. "We'll raise flipping hell and block work in the House and Senate unless the Fornero reform is overturned," he told Italian radio. He said he was "even" ready to vote a bill proposed by the ruling Democratic Party as long as the law, which raised pension ages and left thousands stuck without a job or a pension, was changed.