European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has unveiled an action-plan to help Italy deal with the surge of Tunisian migrants on its Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.
“Italy’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, has pledged tougher measures and is calling for a naval blockade of North Africa to prevent migrants on smugglers’ boats from departing. Tensions have spiked on the island, which is closer to Tunisia than the Italian mainland, with residents expressing impatience with the constant flow of migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa arriving on their shores — not just this week.
Tensions have spiked on the island, which is closer to Tunisia than the Italian mainland, with residents expressing impatience with the constant flow of migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa arriving on their shores — not just this week but for decades. Migrant numbers this week briefly surpassed that of the island’s residents, who have been witness to countless tragedies.
‘We will decide who comes to the European Union, and under what circumstances. Not the smugglers’, von der Leyen declared after touring the island’s hotspot. The Red Cross said 1,500 migrants remained in the center built to accommodate hundreds.
In the face of the new crisis on Lampedusa, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has pledged tougher measures and is calling for a naval blockade of North Africa to prevent migrants on smugglers’ boats from departing.
Von der Leyen vowed to crack down on ‘this brutal business’ of migrant smuggling and help Italy cope with the spike in arrivals. But the 10-point plan appeared to stop short of a naval blockade, at least a quick one.
She instead offered support for ‘exploring options to expand existing naval missions in the Mediterranean, or to work on new ones’.
The plan also includes speeding funds to Tunisia as part of a deal with the EU to block departures in exchange for aid, helping Italy accelerate asylum requests and setting up humanitarian corridors in countries of origin to discourage illegal routes.
Von der Leyen pledged the Frontex border agency’s support in ensuring ‘the swift return of migrants to their country of origin’ who don’t qualify to stay in the E.U.
And she called on EU nations to accept voluntary transfers — a frequent source of discord — as the EU dispatches experts to help manage and register the high number of migrants arriving in Italy.
‘It is very important for me (to be here) because irregular migration is a European challenge and it needs a European answer. So we are in this together’, von der Leyen said.
Meloni, who has softened her once-combative stance against the E.U. since coming to power last year, framed von der Leyen’s visit as a ‘gesture of responsibility of Europe toward itself’, and not just a sign of solidarity with Italy”. -Associated Press
Despite Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni campaigning on a populist platform that included a limitation on mass migration, immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Italy by boat have more than doubled in the year 2023.
While the Italian island of Lampedusa gets sacked by foreign African hoards, as usual, Meloni merely pays phony lip service to the idea that she’ll supposedly be taking “extraordinary measures” to deal with the upswing in emigration, something she had pledged to restrict as soon as she was to become Prime Minister.