On migrants, the EPP agrees with the Meloni government. And he relaunches the partial data of the Interior Ministry

Manfred Weberpresident of the EPP, points out in the Corriere that the sea is not controllable like the territorial borders and that a state should “be able to decide who is welcome in the EU”while Guido CrosettoItalian defense minister, tells La Stampa that blocking migrants for twenty days on humanitarian ships was an effective way “to raise the question [dell’immigrazione, ndr] throughout Europe”. Both are convinced that the European Union – and above all countries such as France and Germany – leave the burden of welcoming an abandoned Italy. Just as they agree on the fact that the intention that hovers around the ministry of the Interior, but which has never been made official, of create a specific code of conduct for rescues at sea by NGOs can avoid the risk of collaboration between the smugglers and the ships (which, however, remains an inference that has never been ascertained in any of the trials in which the non-governmental organizations that rescue the shipwrecked are accused).

The president of the popular party and the minister relaunched the numbers that have been ringing out for days: 117 and 38. The 117 relocations of asylum seekers within the Union, completed under the European Solidarity Mechanism on a voluntary basis. And 38, the migrants who from Italy were able to go to France. Both point out that of the 8,000 planned relocations, very few have been completed. However, they leave out Eurostat data on asylum applications, in which Italy figures fourth after Germany and France, and which register respectively 190,000 and 120,000 requests. Just as they ignore economic aid – also within the scope of the solidarity mechanism – of which Italy is the largest beneficiary of all the member countries.

Yesterday the migration issue was discussed both in Brussels, at the European summit of ministers of foreign affairs, where Antonio Tajani was present, and in Italy, where Guido Crosetto found a new definition for NGO ships, that of “floating social centers”: “I wanted to say that they don’t have a partisan mission. But they are ideological and they moved in the total absence of any rules”, he glosses in the interview with La Stampa. Weber likewise says he is in favor of a differentiated treatment for humanitarian vessels: “It could help us to organize things in a better way”. Yet NGO ships as well as all ships, including merchant ships, are already regulated by international standards. This concept was clarified to the Italian government just yesterday both by the spokeswoman of the European Commission Anitta Hipper (“We do not make differences between NGO ships and the others”), and by the statements by the German ambassador in Italy Victor Elbling (“They save lives where the help of states is lacking”), as well as the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.