Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister
Antonio Tajani on Thursday cancelled a trip to Paris to see his
French counterpart Catherine Colonna saying that French Interior
Minister Gérald Darmanin's assertion earlier in the day that
Premier Giorgia Meloni was incapable of solving Italy's migrant
problems was unacceptable.
Darmanin said Meloni was a far-right leader like France's Marine
Le Pen who was unable to solve the migrant problems for which
she had been elected, amidst an extremely serious migrant
crisis.
It was a fresh migrant spat between the two countries after a
clash over an NGO run migrant ship that ended up in France after
being refused entry into Italy last November.
"I will not go to Paris for the planned meeting with Colonna.
The insults to the government and Italy uttered by Minister
Darmanin are unacceptable. This is not the spirit in which
common European challenges should be addressed," tweeted Tajani,
No 2 in three-time ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right
Forza Italia party.
He said that Darmanin's claim was a stab in the back from France
to Italy.
"The French interior minister made incomprehensible and
unacceptable statements, a stab in the back because the climate
was absolutely positive and I had been invited by my colleague
8Catherine) Colonna to study what we could do together", said
the Vice-Premier and foreign minister to Tg4, a Berlusconi TV
news outlet.
"I could not accept Italy being insulted. He trash-talked our
country for no reason other than internal politics, but a
minister of the interior of a great country should reflect
before speaking. I expected a statement of apology to the
Italian government".
The French foreign ministry tried to row back Darmanin's
comments saying Paris was keen to work with Rome in migrant
issues.
The Quai d'Orsay said that Paris "hopes to work with Italy to
address the common challenge represented by the rapid growth in
migrant flows".
The French government said it hopes that Tajani's visit will be
"quickly rescheduled".
Colonna also said she hoped Tajani would come to the French
capital soon.
"I spoke with my colleague Antonio Tajani on the phone. I told
him that the relationship between Italy and France is based on
mutual respect, between our two countries and between their
leaders. I hope to be able to welcome him soon in Paris'",
tweeted Colonna, who was supposed to receive her Italian
counterpart at 7.30 pm at the Quai d'Orsay before the visit was
cancelled due to Darmanin's words.
In his remarks to a French radio station, questioned about Le
Pen's far right National Rally's criticism of anti-migrant
protections on the French-Italian border, Darmanin said:
"Signora Meloni, who heads a far right government chosen by the
friends of Madame Le Pen, is incapable of resolving the
migratory problems for which she was elected".
Meloni sees herself as a conservative like Britain's Tories and
America's Republicans, although her rightwing party, Brothers of
Italy (FdI) is descended from a postwar neofascist party.
Meloni's biggest ally, rightwing League party leader and Deputy
Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, said: "I'm proud
to be a friend of Marine Le Pen and to be in government with
Giorgia Meloni, and I don't take lessons on immigration from
those who push back into Italy women, children and men, instead
continuing to host murderers and terrorists who should return to
Italy," referring to a March 28 supreme Court of Cassation
ruling confirming a lower court's refusal to extradite 10 former
leftist terrorists, mostly ex- members of the Red Brigades (BR)
group which dominated Italy's Years of Lead of social turmoil
and leftist and rightist political violence from the late 1960s
to the mid 1980s.
Darmanin should apologise for calling Premier Giorgia Meloni a
far right leader incapable of solving the migrant issues for
which she was elected, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said
Thursday.
Crosetto, a heavyweight in Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy
(FdI) party, called Darmanin's statement "incomprehensible
interference" into Italian domestic politics and blamed France
for mistakes in foreign policy that had caused huge migrant
flows from Africa.
Crosetto said in a statement: "This strange and incomprehensible
attitude of some members of European governments to try to
interfere in Italian public life has today exceeded the guard
level. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin should issue a
formal apology to our government and Premier Meloni. The truth
is that we need everything right now except further divisions.
It doesn't take a genius to realise that souring relations
between the founding countries of the EU can only weaken each of
us. The huge migratory flows we are witnessing today are
unfortunately the result of too many mistakes made for decades
in Africa by many nations. It would be better to reflect on
these wrong choices and avoid making new ones than to seek
controversy at all costs, perhaps for internal political ends.
Many people talk about the importance of the Quirinal Treaty,
but in order to be consequent one should respect and implement
it and not hurt it with outsized exits'.
Italy's main opposition parties, meanwhile, said that Darmanin
should leave the job of opposing Meloni's government to them.
The centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) said Darmanin
should concern himself with other things than opposing the
Italian government.
"The Italian opposition is doing opposition to the Meloni
government (and we are gaining ground)" said PD foreign affairs
pointman Giuseppe Provenzano.
"The French Minister Darmanin can serenely dedicate himself to
his domestic problems. But the umpteenth diplomatic crisis with
France, fuelled by the government's choices, is not in the
national interest".
Populist opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader and ex-premier
Giuseppe Conte said It is only up to the parliamentary
opposition to say that the government is unfit.
"With regard to the statements by the French interior minister,
I say that it is only up to us Italians to recognise that this
government is incapable" said Conte on Darmanin's statements on
Italy's migrant policy.
"This government is incapable," the former premier stressed,
"but we have to say so. "French and (other) foreign ministers
should not be allowed to interfere in our affairs," Conte added.
Italy has seen a big increase in the number of migrants and
refugees arriving via sea from North Africa this year.
Rome has been calling on the European Union to do more to share
out the burden of migrant flows between member States and to
protect the EU's external border.
Meloni's government has also passed legislation to regulate the
activities of NGO-run migrant rescue ships operating in the
Mediterranean.
France and Italy came to loggerheads over migrants last year
when Paris agreed to take a migrant ship that had been at sea
for over three weeks, in the first such instance of a re-routing
to France.
Emmanuel Macron's government got heavy flak from the opposition,
both left and right, for apparently giving in to Rome in the
case of the Ocean Viking, one of four NGO run migrant rescue
ships that had been in a standoff with Italy over disembarking
migrants.
Meloni has since lifted her ban on NGO run ships docking in
Italy but the government is sending them to ports a long way
from rescue zones, hampering their ability to carry out
operations.
Amid the November spat, after the Ocean Viking took its 230
migrants to Toulon, Paris called Rome's refusal to take the boat
unacceptable, suspended plans to take in 3,500 migrants from
Italy as a reprisal, and called on "all the participants" in the
EU's migrant-relocation mechanism to adopt similar measures,
especially Germany.
Meloni branded the French response as aggressive and unjustified
while French Secretary of State for EU Affairs Laurence Bonne
said that trust with Rome had broken down following the row -
although the two countries went on to patch things up.
Paris recently bolstered its police deployment on the
Franco-Italian border to stop migrants crossing into France.
Italy's Lower House on Thursday gave definitive approval to a
package of measures to combat irregular migration introduced by
the government after the February 26 shipwreck off Steccato di
Cutro in Calabria that left 94 refugees and migrants confirmed
dead.
The provisions, initially set out in a decree law pending
conversion by parliament into law with amendments, were approved
with 179 votes in favour, 11 against and 3 abstentions.
The so-called Cutro law includes controversial restrictions to
Italy's protection regime for asylum seekers not qualifying for
international protection.
It also makes it more difficult for beneficiaries of protection
under national law to remain in Italy legally once their permits
have expired.
In addition, the provisions introduce new penalties for migrant
traffickers and new accelerated border procedures for asylum
seekers coming from countries considered to be safe.
The package also introduces important changes to Italy's
two-tier reception system, with all asylum seekers with the
exception of unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable
categories, Ukrainians, Afghans and those arriving via the
humanitarian corridor scheme now being accommodated in
first-line reception centres often housing large numbers of
people and under the new provisions now also offering a more
limited range of services for the duration of the refugee status
determination procedure; and beneficiaries of international
protection being accommodated in the second-line 'widespread'
reception system run at municipal level and facilitating local
integration and integration.
The law represents the second clamp-down on migration enacted by
the Meloni government after it introduced the new rules
restricting migrant search and rescue operations in the Central
Mediterranean targeting NGOs.
Italy has been grappling with a significant rise in the number
of sea arrivals in recent months, with 42.405 arrivals since the
start of 2023 compared to 11.226 over the same period in 2022
and 10.616 in 2023.
Also on Thursday, Meloni and eastern Libyan strongman General
Khalifa Haftar discussed the recent unprecedented upsurge in
migrant flows to Italy in their two-hour talks in Rome.
Meloni and the 'strongman of Cyrenaica' focused on the
unprecedented growth of the migratory phenomenon towards Italy,
the sources said, among topics of mutual interest.
Haftar is visiting Rome to continue dialogue on the
stabilisation of Libya and North Africa.
He met Tajani Wednesday night and discussed the migrant issue,
among other things.
Haftar has been behind much of the upheaval in Libya in recent
years, but is now considered an important interlocutor in the
country following a deal with Tripoli Premier Abdelhamid
Dbeibah.
His visit comes as Italy continues to grapple with a growing
number of migrants and refugees arriving by sea from North
Africa.
Many depart from Libya, including from the Cyrenaica region
bordering Egypt, where Haftar has control.
During her talks with Haftar, Meloni also voiced support for
United Nations efforts to bring about fresh elections in Libya
by the end of this year.
She said Italy confirms its support for UN action in Libya in
revitalising the political process that could lead to
presidential and parliamentary elections by the end of 2023.
On 28 January Meloni was in Tripoli, where she met the Prime
Minister of the Libyan National Unity Government, Abdelhamid
Dbeibah.
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