(ANSA) - Berlin, August 29 - Italy will incur a penalty if it
doesn't pay its EU budget quota in a row over migrants, European
Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told Die Welt Wednesday.
"All EU States have assumed the obligation of paying their
contributions within the established time," he said.
"All the rest would be a violation of the treaties which
would entail penalties".
He said "Italy has won our support in tackling the migrant
crisis and its consequences, I can only warn Rome about mixing
the migrant issue with the EU budget".
Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio was undeterred by Oettinger's
statement, reiterating Wednesday that Italy will veto the EU
budget unless it gets more help in dealing with migrants.
Oettinger, Di Maio said, "continues to make statements every
day ever since we told him we're not going to give them the
money."
"We never heard from them when we asked them for a hand on
migration.
"The only thing this EU understands is when you start to cut
their money.
"Our position on the budget veto remains the same. If over
the coming days they start to rediscover the spirit of
solidarity with which the EU was founded, then we'll talk about
it".
Italy's new hardline stance on migrants has been criticised
by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has said he is the
adversary of European populists and nationalists.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who agreed on migrants with
Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban in Milan Tuesday, said Wednesday
"the main adversary of Macron, looking at the polls, is the
French people".
He said "instead of giving lectures to other governments he
should throw open his own borders, starting from the one at
Ventimiglia (with Italy).
"And he should stop destabilising Libya for economic
interests".
Macron said on a visit to Denmark Wednesday that he was an
adversary of Salvini and Orban, who criticised him when they met
in Milan Tuesday - where Orban called Salvini "my hero" for
trying to stop sea-borne migrants.
The French president said the pair "are right" to see him as
their "main adversary" in Europe on the migrant issue.
"I will not give in to the nationalists and those who preach
hatred," Macron said.
"If they wanted to see me as their main adversary they are
right".
Some 100 migrants who landed from
the coast guard ship Diciotti after a 10-day standoff with the
EU arrived Wednesday at a Catholic-run reception centre in Rocca
di Papa south of Rome.
The migrants were met by a crowd split between those
welcoming them and those saying they were not welcome there -
despite the fact that they will soon be sent around Italy.
The Democratic Party (PD) former mayor of the Lazio town,
Pasquale Boccia, said ahead of their arrival: "it can't be done,
there is rancour on the part of the residents, which is turning
into hatred, we're already hosting enough of them".
The head of the cooperative that runs the migrant centre in
Rocca di Papa, Domenico Alagia, said "they will remain a few
days in the centre and then will be welcomed by the diocese
which said they were prepared to take them around Italy".
Another 39 have remained in the hotspot in Messina, waiting
to be transferred to Albania and Ireland, the only two nations
who have said they will take some of the Diciotti migrants.
The Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) has said the 100 will be
shortly transferred to the many dioceses who have given their
availability: Turin, Brescia, Bologna, Agrigento, Cassano
all'Jonio, Rossano Calabro, among others.
The stand-off came after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini
kept the migrants aboard saying they would not land until the EU
agreed to take them.
Salvini is under investigation by an Agrigento prosecutor for
alleged kidnapping, illegal arrest and abuse of office.
Albanian Premier Edi Rama said Tuesday Italy had been left
alone by the EU to cope with the migrant emergency.
Speaking in Genoa after agreeing to take in 20 Eritrean
migrants from the Diciotti after the standoff, Rama said "Italy
has been the most welcoming country in Europe in the last 30
years, but it has been left alone and nerves are no longer so
solid, we intervened hoping that Europe would do something
concrete to resolve the problem".
"We (Albanians) were once the Eritreans. Italy was our
promised land and the Italians did not ever leave us in the
middle of the sea".
Migrants "should be drowned in the open sea", a doctor at
Spoleto hospital said on her Facebook page recently, sources
said Tuesday.
The doctor works in the ER ward at the Umbrian hospital.
Il Messaggero newspaper said she called migrants "n**gers
with Nike shoes and full bellies" and said they had scabies
because of the "violence they perpetrated".
The local health authority told ANSA it had started
disciplinary proceedings against her.
The doctor made her remarks in a Facebook group with some
38,000 doctors on it.
Her profile had been deleted Tuesday morning.
Also on Wednesday, a European Commission spokesperson said
migrants must consent when resettlement involves a transfer from
an EU member like Italy to a third country like Albania.
Commenting on Rome's deal with Tirana to take
20 migrants from the Diciotti ship, the spokesperson said:
"When it is a question of bilateral accords between a member
State and a third country", the spokesperson said, "you have to
ask them (the migrants) for details...there are several elements
to take into consideration in assessing their legality".
"In particular there is the consent of the people" to making
asylum claims in countries other than those they arrived in, the
spokesperson said.
Defence Minister Elisabetta Trenta will on Thursday propose
to her EU colleagues a rotation of landing ports for the Sophia
anti-human-trafficking mission so that not all migrants land in
Italy, sources said Wednesday.
"Italy should not still be the only country to take on the
problem, but also other member States," she will put to them.
The Libyan coast guard says it has intercepted some 400
migrants heading for Europe in the last week, including dozens
of women and children, off its coast.
Coast guard spokesman Ayoub Gassim explained that the
migrants received humanitarian aid and medical care and were
taken to refugee camps in the cities of Zawiya e Tajoura.
Italy has a deal with Libyan coast guards to pull back
migrants heading for Italy.
Two Ukrainian people traffickers have been arrested for
bringing 44 Afghan migrants including 12 children to Italy on
board a sailboat from Turkey, police said Wednesday.
The boat landed near Noto in Sicily on Monday, they said.
Penalty if Italy doesn't pay budget bit
Di Maio repeats threat, Salvini clashes with Macron