Italy’s hardline interior minister heads to the front line of the refugee crisis

Italy’s new hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini arrived in Sicily today to push the anti-immigration agenda which propelled him to power.

The leader of the right-wing League, who has told illegal immigrants to ‘pack their bags’, rallied support today in Pozzallo, a port town on the front line of the Mediterranean refugee crisis.

The port town in southern Sicily is one of the main landing points for refugees fleeing war, persecution and famine across North Africa and the Middle East. 

It came as at least 11 migrants were killed last night when their boat sank off Tunisia’s southern coast and 67 others were rescued by the coast guard. 

Italy’s new interior minister Matteo Salvini (centre), pictured at a Republic Day celebration in Rome yesterday, has put cutting down on illegal immigration at the top of his agenda

Security officials said the boat was packed with about 180 migrants, including 80 from other African countries. The migrants were of Tunisian and other nationalities. 

Italy ended three months of political turnoil on Friday when the League formed a coalition with the Five Star Movement under new PM Giuseppe Conte. 

The League is historically a northern regional party but is trying to boost its profile in the country’s poorer south.   

A controversial agreement between Italy’s former centre-left government and authorities and militias in Libya has triggered a fall in overall arrivals of some 75 percent since the summer of 2017.

But so far this year Italian authorities have still registered more than 13,500 arrivals.

The most recent came late on Friday, just hours after Salvini took his oath of office, when 158 people including nine children landed Pozzallo after being rescued by the Italian coast guard.

Salvini had said after being sworn in that he would ask his ministry’s experts ‘how to reduce the number of arriving migrants and increase the number of expulsions’.

‘The good times for illegals is over – get ready to pack your bags,’ he said Saturday at a rally in Italy’s north.

‘Countries need to start doing their job and no more smugglers should be docking in Italian ports,’ he said in a swipe at the NGOs organising rescues at sea, which he has regularly accused of complicity with people traffickers.

He added during a stop in Catania that the new government would ‘not take a hard line on immigration but one of common sense.’

Italy narrowly avoided new elections when the League and Five Star Movement reached an agreement late on Friday, forming a government at the second attempt. 

Migrants stands in line after disembarking from a Norwegian vessel in Pozzallo, a port in Sicily where Italy's new interior minister went to promote his agenda today (pictured in 2016)

Migrants stands in line after disembarking from a Norwegian vessel in Pozzallo, a port in Sicily where Italy’s new interior minister went to promote his agenda today (pictured in 2016)

The country had faced political instability for three months after inconclusive March elections, rocking financial markets and spreading unease among its euro partners.

The two parties’ first attempt at a coalition was foiled when President Sergio Mattarella vetoed the choice of Eurosceptic Paolo Savona as economy minister. 

Mattarella then asked pro-austerity economist Carlo Cottarelli to form a caretaker government, but when his support crumbled Five Star and the League frantically resumed talks to get their coalition back on track.  

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the anti-establishment Five Star movement, has also called rescue NGOs ‘taxis on the sea’. 

The previous government announced a budget of some 4.2 billion euros for migrants, of which 18 percent is for rescues at sea, 13 percent for health care, and 65 percent for migrant reception centres, which host some 170,000 people.

But Salvini is targeting those funds in order to increase the number of detention centres.

A lifeboat from the Italian frigate Grecale carries a group of migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, who were on their way to the post of Pozzallo in Sicily (pictured in 2014)

A lifeboat from the Italian frigate Grecale carries a group of migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, who were on their way to the post of Pozzallo in Sicily (pictured in 2014)

The vast majority of existing centres are run by cooperatives or NGOs who were promised 25-35 euros per day for each person they provide with lodging, clothes and other services including legal aid or psychological support. 

The new government will also change the labour reform introduced by the previous administration, Labour and Industry Minister Luigi di Maio said.

‘People not only don’t have any (job) security to get married, they don’t even have any (job) security to book their holidays,’ Di Maio, 5-Star Movement’s leader, said in a Facebook post. 

Di Maio was appointed as deputy prime minister and head of the newly merged labour and industry ministry. 

The legislation, introduced in 2015, made it easier for large companies to fire people and offered fiscal incentives for companies that hired permanent workers on new, less-protected terms.

Employment has increased, but in the last two years most new jobs created have been the kind of temporary work the Jobs Act was supposed to deter. Italy’s unemployment rate stood at 11.2 percent in April.



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