Started five days ago as a pact, misunderstandings and errors led to a serious diplomatic clash between France and Italy, which resulted in what looked like an agreement to place 231 shipwrecked on one of the four humanitarian ships that rocked the Mediterranean in recent days. The plan was to unload a thousand migrants in Sicilian ports.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who had announced the agreement with the new head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni, now seems outraged and his government has announced that the crisis in diplomatic relations “is serious”.
France canceled an agreement on Wednesday evening to welcome 3,500 migrants from Italy and invited Germany and the other countries of the European Union (there are 27) to do the same.
The French argue that Meloni wanted to demonstrate the French decision to welcome part of the thousand castaways as a victory for the new center-right government in defense of “national borders”.
The lack of diplomatic experience played a bad joke on the Italians, who did not take into account the fact that the French are very sensitive.
The question, which seems incredible, arose from a friendly understanding in an open conflict that France wants to play in the European Union itself against Italy.
The French have repeatedly stressed that Italy is the first recipient of very important agreements for European contributions. A veiled threat to attack the new government of Rome, which seemed to have found a nice friend at European level in President Macron’s France.
clash of powers
Is this the picture of? accident which took place between two of the most important powers of the European Union. And the French seem very active in their desire to drag Germany to refuse to accept the immigrants that Italy could relocate to German soil.
Furthermore, France said the deal was not what the Italians say. Had it been agreed that one third of the 231 shipwrecked aboard the Ocean Viking would be taken over by France, Italy would have hired another third and the remaining third would go to the Germans and another collaborating country.
The Legal issues and claims of national pride instead they wrecked what seemed like a big deal which was a letter of introduction from the new Italian government, determined to show itself jealous of the defense of national borders.
The big mess began when a week ago four ships of European humanitarian organizations, two flying the German flag and two Norwegian, asked to enter the first safe harbor, located in Italy in the area adjacent to the waters of Libya and Tunisia, two African countries .
The four had to unload a total of a thousand castaways. For the new Italian government it was its first ever uncompromising position to prevent illegal immigration. Three ships entered two Sicilian ports, while the Ocean Viking remained floating with 231 shipwrecked in international waters because Italy did not allow entry, according to her captain.
rome took a fatal decision which is the origin of all the pasticho that followed. He divided the castaways into “vulnerable” and “healthy”. The first accepted for humanitarian reasons: children, women, fragile people. The others have not received the landing authorization e they were informed that they had to leave on the three ships that were to sail anchor.
In two cases, in the port of Catania, their captains refused. They claimed that they had an obligation to disembark all castaways in a safe harbor. In the third case, from a smaller boat, the 98 migrants were all welcomed because there was Italian intervention in the rescue.
dangerous path
The southern Mediterranean, especially in Libyan waters, is considered the most dangerous route in the world. Many thousands of castaways have died in the past decade. Only 10% were assisted by ships of humanitarian NGOs.
90% were rescued by Italian ships, which did an excellent job. The data from the last few days is impressive in this regard.
As the government’s decision to divide the castaways into “vulnerable” and “healthy” was largely rejected, doctors who certified who could and who could not disembark were summoned again, this time with the reinforcement of a psychologist and others. health specialists.
Result: all migrants were declared “vulnerable” and authorized to disembark.
At this point the conflict took a bad turn for the Italian government and its restrictive policy. However, the salvific case arose: the Ocean Viking ship that had failed to enter a safe Sicilian port with 231 shipwrecks.
The agreement between the French president Macron and the head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni, was then known. But according to the French, Italians read the agreement differently. Like a win hard line sovereign of the “defense of national borders”, according to the Paris government.
The sparks of a short circuit began which culminated in an incendiary conflict between the two powers European. The Italians claim that the French agreed to allow the Ocean Viking ship to sail for the French port of Marseille. After some hesitation, the French said that this was not the agreement, that the ship was to dock in an Italian port. The Rome government has insisted that the pact begin with the transport of the ship to Marseille.
From this growing lack of intelligence, a serious diplomatic clash was born in a few hours, which is now shaking the entire European Union.
The Meloni government, which seemed to have started its diplomatic management well with a trip to Brussels to tackle problems with the European authorities in a climate of strong collaboration, suddenly found itself at his first international crisis.
We must not forget that in France the second party is far right, led by Marine Le Pen. Today Le Pen said that if they were in government they would not accept the entry into a French port of a ship with shipwrecks who had to disembark in other distant ports. Le Pen is in tune with the ideas of the new Italian right-wing government.
By early Friday, the Ocean Viking is expected to dock at the military port of Tolon.
According to the French, they would have accepted to welcome the shipwrecked because the humanitarian organization that manages the ship is based in Marseille and urgent measures were needed to assist the migrants.
In the speech of the accusations that come and go they also confront the new Meloni government for not having recalled that the European countries that have tenaciously refused to redistribute migrants in the Union are those of the Visegrad group: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia .
These are the countries ruled by right-wing sovereigns to which the new Italian government has joined. Meloni is now being reproached for this ideological kinship by her opponents of her because the pro-sovereignists are tenaciously opposed to any openness to migrants.
Rome, correspondent
CB
Source: Clarin
