Interior Minister Angelino
Alfano on Monday defended Italy's migrant and refugee facilities
amid calls from Brussels for Italy to "do more" to identify the
newcomers.
The European Commission said last Thursday that it has
opened an infringement procedure against Italy for failing to
respect the rules on the collection of the fingerprints of
asylum seekers upon entry into Europe.
Greece and Croatia have also been hit with the procedure.
The move regards the alleged failure to correctly
implement the Eurodac Regulation, which demands the
fingerprinting of asylum seekers and transmission of data to the
Eurodac central system within 72 hours.
"We are intransigent on the photographing and
fingerprinting of migrants," Alfano said.
"We are close to 100%".
His comments came ahead of a meeting in Milan with EU
Immigration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos over the
infringement procedures.
"Europe open a procedure of thanks instead, because had we
not saved thousands of lives Europe would now be covered
in...shame," Alfano added.
On Tuesday Brussels is expected to publish a report on the
steps taken by Italy and Greece to set up so-called 'hotspots'
for identifying and sorting migrants and refugees.
Of the six hotspots planned for Italy only one has been
created so far, sources in Brussels said.
Meanwhile German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday she
"expected Italy and Greece to create the hotspots and to do so
in such a way that migrants are not only registered, but also
redistributed or sent home".
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