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MIGRANT CRISIS

EU scrambles to address Italy island migrant surge

The EU said Saturday that its top official Ursula von der Leyen would visit the Italian island of Lampedusa, as Rome called on Brussels for help after a surge in migrant arrivals.

Published: 16 September 2023 13:33 CEST
Updated: 16 September 2023 17:53 CEST
Migrants gather in the harbour of Italian island of Lampedusa, before being transferred to Porto Empedocle in Sicily region, south Italy, by the Italian military ship Cassiopea, on September 15, 2023. The island's reception centre has been overwhelmed this week.
Migrants gather in the harbour of Italian island of Lampedusa, before being transferred to Porto Empedocle in Sicily region, south Italy, by the Italian military ship Cassiopea, on September 15, 2023. The island's reception centre has been overwhelmed this week. Photo:  Alessandro SERRANO / AFP

The president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will head to the island on Sunday with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, officials from both sides said.

Before that, the interior ministers from Italy, France, Germany and Spain held a phone call Saturday afternoon with the EU’s home affairs commissioner on the crisis.

Meloni has urged the EU to act to relieve the pressure after thousands of people landed by boats over three days this week on Lampedusa, just 90 miles (145 kilometres) off the coast of Tunisia.

The increase in arrivals has rekindled the debate over how Europe shares responsibility for asylum seekers.

Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, has long been a landing point for migrant boats from North Africa. But this week its migration centre — built for fewer than 400 people — was overwhelmed.

Between Monday and Wednesday, around 8,500 people — more than the entire local population — arrived in 199 boats, according to the UN migration agency.

‘Unsustainable’

Images of people sleeping in the open air, scaling the perimeter fence and wandering around the town, sparked anger among members of Italy’s hard-right government.

The congestion eased as officials transferred thousands of migrants from the tiny island of Lampedusa to Sicily on Friday

While hundreds more were being moved across on Saturday morning, there were further arrivals by sea. The Italian Red Cross said 2,500 people remained at the overcrowded migration centre.

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called the arrivals an “act of war”, and on Friday, Meloni urged the European Union to do more to help.

“The migratory pressure that Italy has been experiencing since the beginning of the year is unsustainable,” she said in a video message broadcast by her office.

She urged von der Leyen to visit Lampedusa and asked European Council President Charles Michel to put the matter on the agenda for October’s EU summit.

Von der Leyen — with Meloni’s strong backing — struck an agreement with Tunisia in July aimed at curbing the flow of irregular migration from the North African country.

Arrivals double

Tunisia is a main embarcation point for migrants making the perilous sea-crossing to Europe each year.

More than 127,000 migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores so far this year, up from more than 66,000 in the same period last year.

Over 2,000 people have died this year crossing between North Africa and Italy and Malta, according to the UN migration agency.

Mass migration is a key political issue in several EU capitals ahead of European Parliament elections next June.

In France, members of the far right said the government should not allow any migrants from Lampedusa across the border from Italy.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Saturday that the time had come “first and foremost to show solidarity with Italy” and “mobilise” the European Union.

She said France’s President Emmanuel Macron would hold talks with Meloni.

Germany earlier this week confirmed it had stopped accepting migrants living in Italy under a European solidarity plan aimed at easing pressure on EU border nations.

READ ALSO: Germany suspends voluntary migrant intake plan with Italy

The EU is pushing to overhaul its rules on how to handle the thousands of migrants heading to the continent.

Southern countries that face large numbers of arrivals such as Italy, Greece and Spain have long pressed for other countries to take more of those who come.

But right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary have strongly opposed an agreement.   

Member comments

  1. von der Leyen? I can’t stop laughing a lot of good she will do useless woman.

    Salvini is the only one who can save Italy.

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MIGRANT CRISIS

Italy joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

Italy is one of 15 EU member states who have sent a joint letter to the European Commission demanding a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, which will make it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, such as Rwanda, including when they are rescued at sea.

Published: 17 May 2024 11:59 CEST
Italy joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

The countries presented their joint stance in a letter dated May 15th to the European Commission, which was made public on Thursday.

It was sent less than a month before European Parliament elections across the 27-nation European Union, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains.

Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania signed the letter.

In it, they ask the European Union’s executive arm to “propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe”.

They want the EU to toughen its asylum and migration pact, which introduces tighter border controls and seeks to expedite the deportation of rejected asylum-seekers.

The pact, to be operational from 2026, will speed up the vetting of people arriving without documents and establish new border detention centres.

The 15 countries also want to see mechanisms to detect and intercept migrant boats and take them “to a predetermined place of safety in a partner country outside the EU, where durable solutions for those migrants could be found”.

They said it should be easier to send asylum seekers to third countries while their requests for protection are assessed.

They cited as a model a controversial deal Italy has struck with Albania, under which thousands of asylum-seekers picked up at sea can be taken to holding camps in the non-EU Balkan country as their cases are processed.

READ ALSO: Italy approves controversial Albanian migrant deal

The European Commission said it would study the letter, though a spokeswoman, Anitta Hipper, added that “all our work and focus is set now on the implementation” of the migration and asylum pact.

Differences with UK-Rwanda model

EU law says people entering the bloc without documents can be sent to an outside country where they could have requested asylum – so long as that country is deemed safe and the applicant has a genuine link with it.

That condition differentiates it from a scheme set up by non-EU Britain under which irregular arrivals will be denied the right to request asylum in the UK and sent instead to Rwanda.

Rights groups accuse the African country – ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people – of cracking down on free speech and political opposition.

The 15 nations said they want the EU to make deals with third countries along main migration routes, citing the example of the arrangement it made with Turkey in 2016 to take in Syrian refugees fleeing war.

Camille Le Coz, associate director of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, said: “In legal terms, these models pose many questions and are very costly in terms of resource mobilisation and at the operational level.”

The opening date for migrant reception centres in Albania set up under the deal with Italy had been delayed, she noted.

With the June 6th-9th EU elections leading to a new European Commission, the proposals put forward by the 15 countries would go into the inbox of the next commission for it to weigh them, she said.

She also noted that EU heavyweights France, Germany and Spain had not signed onto the letter.

“For certain member countries, the priority really is the implementation of the pact, and that in itself is already a huge task,” Le Coz said.

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