http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/664e52c8-fa4e-11e5-8e04-8600cef2ca75.html#axzz44woHTpeB
Italy pleads for Greek-style push to return its migrants
James Politi in Rome
Minister says bloc’s immigration system at risk of collapse
Italy is pleading for EU help to ramp up the deportation of migrants arriving on its southern shores, warning that the bloc’s immigration system is at risk of collapse without a more aggressive policy on so-called returns.
In an interview with the FT, Angelino Alfano, Italy’s interior minister, says the EU should move to secure deals with African nations, which are the source of the vast majority of migrants arriving in Italy, offering economic aid in exchange for taking back their citizens and preventing new flows.
His comments come as the EU enacts a scheme with Turkey in which thousands of Middle Eastern refugees will be sent back across the Aegean Sea from Greece in exchange for up to €6bn in EU aid for Ankara. A first group of 135 were returned to Turkey on Monday.
“Europe was able to find the resources when it was urgent — I am referring to Turkey. It’s a matter of political leadership,” Mr Alfano said. “If returns don’t work, the whole [European Commission president] Juncker migration agenda will fail,” he said.
Mr Alfano’s request reflects renewed nervousness in Rome about the migration crisis following an 80 per cent spike in the number of arrivals to Italy across the central Mediterranean Sea in the first quarter of this year compared to 2015.
If that increase holds through the warmer spring and summer months, it would smash the record 170,000 migrants who arrived in Italy in 2014, straining resources and creating a political problem for the centre-left government led by Matteo Renzi.
As the Greece plan goes into action, there are worries in Rome that it may compound problems by encouraging Middle Eastern migrants to switch routes and attempt to enter the EU through Italy, boosting the numbers even further.
“If Syrians don’t want to stay in Turkey but want to try the trip to Europe, they will go around and try to get here from Libya,” Mr Alfano said. “We still don’t have any evidence that this is happening, but we are monitoring.”
Italy has held talks with Albania about containing a possible surge in flows through the Balkan nation. Mr Alfano also expressed hope that the recent, if wobbly, establishment of a national unity government in Libya could lead to a crackdown against migrant smugglers there.
For those who do arrive, Italian officials are hoping that an EU plan to relocate thousands of refugees across its 28 member states will relieve some pressure. So far, only about 500 migrants have been moved from Italy under the plan — “apartment building numbers” — says Mr Alfano, derisively.
The EU relocation scheme is reserved for refugees in need of international protection — essentially Syrians and Eritreans — whereas the bulk of migrants arriving in Italy come from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and are therefore ineligible.
Italy last year deported 15,000 people, or about 10 per cent of all arrivals. Officials believe higher figures are essential to alleviate the country’s burden, even if mass returns could trigger concerns about possible violations of human rights and international law.
“Irregular [migrants] have to be kept in closed camps from where they cannot escape. So how many tens of thousands of people can you keep, year after year? Without returns, either you organise real prisons, or it’s obvious that the system will collapse,” Mr Alfano said. “It doesn’t take a prophet to glimpse the future”.
Italy has struck some so-called “readmission” deals, particularly with north African countries, but officials say they would be much more effective if agreed on an EU-wide level. The difficulty is that member states often disagree on what constitutes “safe country” for returns and some African countries resist taking migrants back. Mr Alfano says in addition the EU should try to set up “ triage centres in as many countries as we can along the route to explain to people that they will be sent back” — another idea that has struggled to gain traction.
Mr Alfano, a 45-year old Sicilian, is a former ally of Silvio Berlusconi who became interior minister in 2013 under Enrico Letta, Mr Renzi’s predecessor, and has remained in the post since then.
His agenda includes terrorism as wells as immigration. After the Paris and Brussels attacks, Italy renewed its call for common defence and intelligence sharing among EU member states, but it feels like an uphill struggle, given the reluctance in many national capitals to cede sovereignty on intelligence matters.
“The terrorists have two attacks, we don’t even have a directive on the ‘passenger name record’,” he said, referring to a languishing EU proposal to share information on airline passengers. “This is what worries me the most.”
While Italy is frequently cited as a possible target of international terror, particularly as the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, it has not been a victim of a big attack since 1985 and has a smaller share of radicalised “foreign fighters” than other countries. Mr Alfano believes this is down to the authorities’ ability to apply tactics and experience from their fights against the Mafia and domestic terrorism in 1970s led by the Red Brigades. He also says there has been lots of co-operation from Muslims in Italy reporting suspicious behaviour.
“Evidently our model doesn’t incite hatred. We have sowed well, at least until now. But there is no country with no risk and we can never be certain,” he said.
Received on Tue Apr 05 2016 - 06:48:29 EDT