Benedetto Antonelli January 12, 2023
Agreements with countries of origin and transit to curb migrant travel at source rather than end. The government confirms the strategy to manage migration flows and does so at the end of a summit held yesterday afternoon at Palazzo Chigi between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, MPs Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani, Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi and the Director General of the Ministry of Information for Security , Elisabetta Belloni. A thorough study and analysis of the phenomenon in order to take stock of the situation and start the coordinated movement of the pawns by all the subjects involved.
Ministers Piantedosi and Tajani will move immediately. The first will take place on Monday in Turkey, where he will meet his counterpart Suleyman Soylu: the focus of the meeting will be on security issues related to the migrant issue, to reaffirm the centrality of the Mediterranean. Tomorrow, however, it will be the turn of Foreign Minister Tajani, who is expected in Turkey and later in Tunisia and Libya. The new security decree, on the other hand, will not come before the Council of Ministers today as originally planned. The government meeting is confirmed – it will take place in the afternoon – but the crackdown on baby gangs, the Taser rule and the new measures to combat violence against women that the home secretary is working on are not on the agenda. Coming back to the immigration emergency, on the arrival front, the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières’ Geo Barents ship is still waiting in the port of Ancona with 73 people rescued in the Mediterranean on board.
The capital of the Marche region was ready to test its first reception on Tuesday with the arrival of the Ocean Viking, which docked in the evening and left yesterday morning. “We drive at 2.5 instead of 10 knots. There are waves up to 4 meters high. The 73 survivors are on the top deck of the Geo Barents, the bottom is flooded. Seasickness is more noticeable here. We distribute bags to vomit to everyone, »wrote the NGO Geo Barents, which has been sailing towards the port of Marche with bad weather for days. The Ocean Viking also complained about the rough seas and bad weather and – he stressed – forced the 37 refugees on board to disembark 1,575 km from the rescue area. “After facing a very violent storm, we are relieved that they are safe – the words of Sos Méditerranée – This legal situation could have been avoided by designating a closer port.”
In fact, the NGOs do not accept the new code of conduct introduced by the government, for which they must immediately take the rescued migrants to the port indicated to them from time to time by the competent authorities, a landing that may be different from the past also be found in central -north regions. Minister Piantedosi has already had the opportunity to explain that the new legislation will not force NGO ships to stay at sea for excessively long periods. In fact, that period is now shortening, as in recent months and years, the captains of these boats have even waited two or three weeks before requesting permission to dock in the port. The reason? Because they conducted multiple rescue operations that lasted for several days. Which is now no longer allowed.