When it seemed that calm had returned between Italy and France thanks to the bilateral summit between the Italian Premier, Giuseppe Conte, and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, the latter once again talks about immigration thundering against the populist "leprosy" infesting Europe and provoking a harsh reaction from the Italian leaders.
“You see them growing like a leprosy, almost everywhere in Europe, in countries where we thought it was impossible to see them reappear. Our close friends say the worst things and we get used to it! They make the worst provocations and no one is scandalized by this ”, declared Macron closing his speech in Quimper.
The reference would be once again Italy and its refusal to open its ports to NGOs after the Aquarius and Lifeline cases.
The reply from the two deputy prime ministers is ready. The first to express himself is Luigi Di Maio which defines Macron's words "offensive and inappropriate". “The real hypocrisy – he writes on Twitter – belongs to those who reject immigrants in Ventimiglia and want to give us morals on the sacrosanct right to ask for a fair distribution of migrants. Solidarity is either European or it is not”.
“Macron said that anyone who doesn't welcome is a leper populist. A gentleman, eh, caviar, champagne and elegance. But I don't take lessons from a country that has an army on the Italian border. If France takes ten boats from Libya, we'll talk about it,” said the interior minister Matteo Salvini.
In the meantime, the Italian tug of war continues on lifeline. Yesterday, June 20, the Minister of Transport, Danilo Toninelli announced, after yet another day of fire, that the Coast Guard will take charge of the 224 migrants aboard the ship Lifeline, which had rescued them off the Libyan coast, taking them in Italy. A few hours earlier, the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini had instead denied the boat to land in Italian ports.
The Lifeline is the ship of the German NGO of the same name, but flies the Dutch flag. As reported by Toninelli, the Netherlands would have confirmed that she is doing it "illegally". The minister's intention is therefore to seize the vessel and take it to an Italian port pending investigations. Late in the evening, Salvini launched yet another broadside: "If they arrive in Italy we will seize their ship and try the crew for aiding and abetting illegal immigration".
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The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said that no solution to the migration issue will be found at the European Council at the end of the month. Merkel insisted on the need to seek not agreements at 28, but "bilateral, trilateral and multilateral agreements", in particular with countries such as Italy, Greece or Bulgaria, which due to their geographical position have for years borne the heaviest burden in terms of reception of migrants. "Sunday will be the occasion for a first exchange with the states concerned", continued Angela Merkel, underlining that the pre-summit has been downgraded to a simple working meeting and that there will be no final joint declaration.
