By stopping Aquarius, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini made it clear that Italy no longer wants to pay to welcome refugees into Europe. He also expects the support of other member states of the European Union. What will Salvini’s approach be to the way the rest of the EU behaves? And will it further dry up the flow of refugees?
When the Aquarius, a rescue ship from the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, requested permission to sail to an Italian port with hundreds of migrants on board on Sunday, the request was rejected. Salvini, the new Italian interior minister, made it clear: “From today, Italy says ‘no’ to people smuggling and ‘no’ to illegal immigration,” he wrote on Twitter. Malta also refused to allow the ship.
Seven pregnant women and more than 120 minors were among the more than 600 refugees who started their journey unaccompanied. Eventually, Spain was willing to accept refugees from Aquarius, so the ship heads to the port of Valencia. Probably come Saturday night.
By closing the borders, Salvini is making it clear that as far as he is concerned the operation is indeed full and that Italy is no longer ready to bear the full burden of the influx of refugees. “This is mainly a statement to other European leaders. Italy now has a different government and Salvini is indicating that he will do things differently,” explains Arthur Weststejn. He is an Italian expert and lecturer at Utrecht University.
Non-Government Organizations
It became clear days after the Aquarius rejection that Italy could not refuse all refugees. An Italian Coast Guard ship carrying nearly 1,000 migrants has been allowed to dock in Catania, Sicily. “If a boat with refugees is in distress, the coast guard has a duty to help,” says Weststeijn. “But Salvini is rebelling against non-governmental organizations (NGOs). He believes these organizations operate as a kind of taxi service, and he wants to deny them as much as possible.”
Matteo Salvini, Italian Minister of the Interior
Carline Kleiger, head of the MSF emergency team, was not happy with the way Italy had prevented the outbreak. “We took part of the 629 refugees from the sea with our boat, and then there was a request from an Italian navy ship and a coast guard ship to take a total of four hundred refugees from those two ships.”
“Initially we promised to anchor in Messina. Then a few hours later they called us with the news that we had not arrived in Italy, while Italy was the first to request the boat to take the refugees. It was rude. To say the least, but really unacceptable.” Kleiger thinks the Italian Coast Guard blew the whistle on Salvini.
“Salvini probably wanted to make a statement with this,” says Weststein. “In terms of style, he is comparable to Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen. He is an advocate of national sovereignty. Salvini believes that NGOs operate in a kind of twilight zone, avoiding the policies of nation states. He wants to break free. He wants Italy to decide whether refugees can enter the country or not.
In het kort:
- De Aquarius, een schip van Artsen zonder Grenzen, redde zondag 629 vluchtelingen die op zee dreven.
- Van de Italiaanse minister van Binnenlandse Zaken Matteo Salvini mocht het schip niet in Italië aanmeren.
- Salvini wil dat Italië niet alleen zorg hoeft te draaien voor het opvangen van vluchtelingen en verwacht steun van overige EU-lidstaten.
- Het dwingt de EU om zich te buigen over een oplossing en stelling te nemen in de discussie over vluchtelingen.
Jump aboard
According to Kleiger, the Libyan city of Tripoli was the closest port for the MSF boat to pick up the refugees. But she says that’s not an option. “The Islamic State is there. The refugees don’t want to go there under any circumstances. One of the Aquarius wanted to jump into the sea thinking we are going back to Libya. Those people will die in the sea. Rather than go back to Libya.”
Kleiger says Tunisia would be the next logical choice. “But that country doesn’t have the law and capacity to accommodate all the people.” So Italy came into the picture. “With the agreement that the other countries of the European Union also take part, the country also receives the money for this. From Italy’s point of view, this is happening too little, so the current government cannot accept it,” says Kleiger.
“We understand that Italy wants a different solution to this, but it doesn’t go over the heads of vulnerable people,” he continues. “We (Doctors Without Borders, ed.) are not the solution to the refugee problem, but only a symptom of Europe’s failed policy. The EU must provide enough. Search and rescueskills. It’s certainly crazy to see the people of the world’s richest continent drowning in front of their borders when there’s enough money to build good recovery options.”
Lack of unity
By closing the Italian borders, Salvini signaled that he had had enough. “There is not a complete unity within the EU to see this as a collective effort,” said Leo Lucassen, director of research at the International Institute for Social History. “If Europe really wants to maintain that it cares about human rights, it needs to start sharing the burden more equally.”
Bram Frows, head of the Mixed Migration Center in Geneva, believes the Dublin convention is “too lopsided”. The deal says migrants from across the EU can be returned to the country where they originally applied for asylum. “That means Italy, Greece and other southern European countries will all be on their plate. Those countries border the Mediterranean, so all the refugees are entering Europe.”
Lucassen sees the only real willingness to tackle this problem in France and Germany. “Only Merkel and Macron see it as a joint task. Eastern Europe doesn’t want to do it at all, and neither do the northern countries.”
“Now the pressure is on in Brussels,” Lucassen says. “If Brussels were to close the borders, it would be an incredibly cynical reaction. Europe has always been committed to welcoming refugees, but this has yet to be proven in practice.”
Fewer refugees
According to Lucassen, the refugee deal could be “thrown overboard” if the EU really wants to prevent migrants from reaching European borders. “The EU countries could wash their hands innocently and say: we didn’t see anyone today, so we couldn’t let anyone in. That would remove the signature under the refugee deal. But no country has dared to do that yet.”
The number of refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe has fallen sharply in recent years. Missing Migrants Project. There were still more than a million in 2015, but that had already dropped to more than 360,000 in 2016. The following year, that number was cut in half. In 2018, more than 35,000 refugees reached Europe via the Mediterranean so far.
Potential increase
Nevertheless, uncertainty about how Europe will handle the refugee crisis in the future could mean the flow of migrants increases again in the coming weeks, according to Frouws. “It’s possible for more people to cross over. That’s it Now or neveridea, because reaching Europe as a refugee can be very difficult in the short term. Smugglers want to extort money quickly.
Frusze thinks that closing borders will not ultimately provide a solution. “Europe should regulate migration in a formal way instead of an informal way. Good deals should be made on repatriation and legal labor migration. Those countries will get something in return, otherwise they will not be accepted. .”
“All the money migrants in Europe send back to their home country is an important source of income. The problem of illegal migration will never be completely solved. People will always migrate, but we have to organize it. It is done in a legal and safe way as much as possible.”
