Silvio Berlusconi, whose party is touted to return to power in next month's Italian election, insists not all migrants saved in the Mediterranean will disembark in Italy as Malta would have to accept them too.
“There is no doubt that migrants who risk their life and cross the Mediterranean have to be saved. However, we will not accept that all disembark in Italy. Those saved close to Malta will have to be taken to and disembark in Malta,” the former Italian prime minister and leader of Forza Italia said on Rai Tre.
Harshly criticising an agreement made by the incumbent centre-left government, through which Italy accepted to take all migrants saved in the Mediterranean, Mr Berlusconi said things would be different if his party was elected to government.
“It is not on that we continue to shoulder all the burden alone. Other countries that have responsibility for search and rescue will also have to share in the burden,” he said.
Until 2011, when Mr Berlusconi shared power with the anti-immigration movement Lega Nord, Malta and Italy had clashes on who should take irregular immigrants saved in Malta’s search and rescue area.
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Malta always insisted that migrants saved close to Lampedusa, an island south of Sicily, should disembark there. However, Italy kept arguing that those who were saved in Malta’s search and rescue region were the island’s responsibility.
Italy often gave in and took the rescued immigrants but there were occasions when Malta had to accept the migrants.
Coalition led by Matteo Renzi adopted a different policy
Following a change in the Italian government in 2013, the new centre-left coalition led by Matteo Renzi adopted a different policy and started accepting all immigrants saved in the region.
However, four years down the line and 600,000 additional immigrants on Italian territory, the popular mood on the policy has turned sour with parties vowing to reverse it.
Since the shift in policy, the Italian media referred to a ‘secret-deal’ struck between Mr Renzi and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who both come from the same political spectrum.
According to the media reports, the arrangement was for Italy to take all migrants in exchange for Maltese oil exploration rights in disputed sea stretches between the two countries.
Officially, the two countries denied that such a deal existed, insisting it was just a matter of “close cooperation”.
As irregular migrants had practically stopped landing in Malta during the past years, NGOs reported a significant downsizing of the country’s infrastructure to cater for a sudden influx of migrants.
The two migration centres in Ħal-Far and Safi have either been dismantled or neglected, raising concerns on whether the island will be able to cope if faced with an influx of migrants.
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Concern increased over the past weeks as a new EU-led mission coordinated by Frontex – operation Themis – started observing new rules of engagement in the Mediterranean. This could also ‘negatively’ affect Malta.
Questions sent to the Office of the Prime Minister on the state of preparedness in case of an influx of irregular migrants remained unanswered at the time of writing.