Matteo Salvini accused France and Germany of snubbing the European nation most exposed to migration, highlighting divisions within the EU and returning to an issue popular with his supporters as he weighs whether to seek a snap election in Italy, reports Bloomberg.
Governments in Paris and Berlin “cannot decide migration policies and ignore the demands of the most-exposed countries like us and Malta,” Salvini said in his capacity as Italian interior minister in a statement released by his office on Sunday.
“Italy is no longer willing to welcome all immigrants arriving in Europe,” his rightist League added, criticizing a draft paper drawn up for a meeting of European interior ministers in Paris on Monday on how to handle the flood of migrants from Africa that primarily arrive by boat to Italy and Malta.
Salvini will skip the meeting at a time when tensions with his coalition partner, the Five Star Movement, are coming to a head. He’s been weighing pulling out of the government in a bid to prompt a new election to capitalize on a surge in popularity partly driven by his hard-line stance on immigration. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have flooded Italy in recent years and the government estimates it spent 4.3 billion euros ($5 billion) aiding migrants in 2017, while receiving only 77 million euros in EU aid.
Interior ministers gathering in Paris will offer to set up a voluntary mechanism to swiftly relocate asylum seekers that are disembarked in Italian and Maltese ports, according to a draft of their communique obtained by Bloomberg. They will also pledge financial and technical assistance to facilitate the swift return of migrants not entitled to asylum protection, according to the statement.
On the sidelines of that meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron will hold talks Monday with the heads of the United Nations agencies dealing with migration and with refugees.