Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said today that Switzerland had misused the Schengen agreement and taken its members "hostage" by slapping a ban on Libyan officials which prompted retaliation by Tripoli.
Libya has stopped issuing entry visas to the 25 European nations covered by Schengen -- some of which are not in the European Union, such as Switzerland -- in response to a Swiss entry ban on 188 of its citizens, including Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his family.
"The Swiss government has put them on the Schengen blacklist. But this is not the Schengen agreement that we know," Frattini said in an interview published in La Stampa newspaper. "By acting in this way, Switzerland has taken hostage the other countries of the Schengen zone."
Libya has for months been locked in a row with Switzerland over the brief 2008 arrest of one of Gaddafi's sons in Geneva, and the subsequent prosecution in Libya of two Swiss citizens.
Frattini said Italy, whose Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has forged closer ties with Gaddafi, had asked Tripoli to reconsider its decision. But he said Schengen was supposed to be used to protect its member states from criminals and terrorists.
"It is not right that Schengen should be twisted by Switzerland into a means of exerting pressure: there are other ways of resolving the bilateral problem with Libya," he said.
"The (Swiss) Confederation's action, equating Gaddafi and other Libyan officials with international terrorists, perhaps could have been avoided."
Switzerland has not publicly acknowledged the existence of a visa blacklist for Libyan officials, but Swiss media have said the list is designed to target Muammar Gaddafi's inner circle.
Swiss officials have said that other states in the Schengen zone have backed Switzerland's line on issuing visas to Libyans.
Italy in recent months has experienced its own frictions with the neighbouring Alpine country, prompted by an Italian tax amnesty for citizens holding undeclared money illegally abroad.
Rome placed Switzerland on a blacklist of countries not cooperating with the amnesty, amid a global crackdown on banking secrecy. Italian tax inspectors raided dozens of Swiss banks in Italy, prompting Switzerland to summon Italy's ambassador in October.
The visa suspension left Europeans stranded at the airport in Libya and forced many to return home. The Libyan government gave no official confirmation or explanation of the measure.