“Downloaded as Amazon parcels”. The short circuit on migrants in Veneto embarrasses the government

Anger mounts from inland. “We are talking about people: it is a shame for their dignity, treat them like Amazon parcels”. Actually, worse. “In that case at least there is a bellboy who rings the bell”. For days, in the small towns of central Veneto, this has been happening: “Gods trucks unload small groups of asylum seekers in front of the station or post office. Without any warning, sometimes at dawn. So we mayors are called to invent a way to welcome them in a hurry”. And go and explain it, to the center-right government, that the appeal for sound management of migratory flows comes from the same local administrators in the Lega area. From Sovizzo to Altavilla Vicentina. Passing through Cornedo, Brogliano, Castelgomberto, Trissino and Gambellara, whose first citizens wrote to the prefectures “to express strong disappointment and concern about unsustainable timing and requests”. Until Noventa PadovanaWhere Marcello Bano acts as a megaphone to colleagues. “If everyone does what he wants, skip the loyal institutional collaboration,” says the mayor al Foglio. “We cannot suffer any longer”.

To date, the region hosts about 7,500 refugees, to whom another 4,000 will soon be added: these are not red alert numbers, but they require an adequate logistical machine. But at the moment it is short-circuited. Zaia acts as peacemaker, throwing water on the fire of his men and at the same time ensuring that the only way is hospitality. The prefects, the authorities in charge of the matter, limit themselves to minimizing: “I’m sorry if there has been some inconvenience”, the echo from one province to another, via Gazzettino and Corriere del Veneto. “Matter of lack of communication. And then the numbers are flexible: they can even be reduced compared to the 4,000 people are talking about. Of course we are not in an emergency. And just to avoid it, we call the municipalities that have never activated extraordinary reception centers so far “. A meeting between the mayors and the prefecture was scheduled for Thursday morning in Vicenza. “But it jumped,” he replies Davide Faccio, from the town hall of Trissino. “Nobody told us why. It’s a bureaucratic problem: I don’t think the government can be happy with what is happening. We receive full sympathy from MPs, councilors, anyone with common sense. But we have no idea how to get out of it.”

To take the defense of the territory, even a dove like Alberto Stefani, new regional secretary and deputy of the Carroccio. Yet upstream the Meloni government, after years of electoral campaigns to the sound of “closed ports and barred customs”, finds itself commenting on a completely different picture. The landings on the Italian coasts in the first six months of 2021 and 2022 – data from the Ministry of the Interior – there were 20,532 and 27,633 respectively. In the same period of 2023, the figure rockets to 64,930: more than triple in two years. Despite the unprecedented media silence. “The only one who had done something was Salvini”, insists Bano, who was also part of the dissident wing of La Liga. “And when he did it he was tried by the square: the peak of his popularity dates back to when he promised a certain type of approach on migratory flows, to then implement it”.

Here it is, the culmination of the climax: Matteo who boasts of the Infrastructures of “when he was there” to another ministry. Up to mend with those who could hardly bear it – it is also the leitmotif of the regional councilors and councilors: “What happens in the municipalities of the Veneto it is the opposite of what is expected of this government”, is whispered in the corridors. Meanwhile, the opposition is rejoicing. And he logically underlines that if the parties were reversed, Lega and FdI would have shouted for ethnic replacement, observing the numbers of the Interior Ministry. “It is a period of delicate social tensions”, reiterates the mayor of Noventa. “We have no real estate to remedy the superficialities of others: forcing the municipalities to take on prefecture charges is unacceptable”. Final arrow to the privileged: “Cortina, Portofino, Capri: are they also affected by these measures?” The answer, for now, is a stealthy van that leaves its human cargo on the forecourt and drives away. It can’t hold up for long.