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POLITICS

EU warns against euroscepticism as populists prepare to govern Italy

EU leaders expressed concern on Friday about the rise of populism within the bloc, fuelled by the migrant crisis, as Italy came a step closer to forming its first anti-establishment government.

Published: 11 May 2018 17:32 CEST
EU warns against euroscepticism as populists prepare to govern Italy
Antonio Tajani. Photo: Patrick Hertzog/AFP

“Being a good Italian also means being a good European citizen. It needs to be repeated out loud, especially now,” EU parliament head Antonio Tajani said at the State of the Union conference in the Tuscan city of Florence. 

Italy's populist Five Star Movement and far-right League party are currently locked in negotiations to form a coalition to lead the country. Should they succeed, the new government would represent a significant change in policy for the Eurozone's third largest economy whose outgoing government is pro-European and centre-left.

The nationalist League is particularly eurosceptic and has advocated renegotiating European treaties, and insisted the euro is doomed to fail.

“Leaving the single currency would be shooting oneself in the foot,” said Tajani, in what appeared to be a direct warning to the League.

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Addressing the conference, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he was worried about the feelings of “resentment” in Europe generated by the arrival of millions of migrants on European shores in recent years.

This resentment “gave populists and nationalists the material they needed to undo solidarity” in Europe, Juncker said, adding that he was shocked by the “ruptures and cracks” that had emerged during the migrant crisis between EU member states. 

“The Italian and Greek people asked loudly for more solidarity because you can not leave countries all alone … unfortunately our response was too late,” said Juncker referring to the burden felt by Europe's southern nations who have shouldered the majority of the responsibility for the new arrivals.

Both the League and M5S have promised to crack down on immigration in Italy.

On Thursday, Italian President Sergio Mattarella was also in Florence and warned against bowing to nationalism.

“To think that we can get by alone is a pure illusion or, worse, a deliberate deception aimed to sway public opinion,” he said.  

READ ALSO: Italy could have a government by Sunday


Matteo Salvini (L) and Luigi Di Maio. Photos: Filippo Monteforte/Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

POLITICS

Govt source says Italy considering ‘reciprocal plan’ to swap refugees with US

Italy and the United States are drawing up a plan to exchange a small number of refugees in a reported bid to deter illegal migration, an Italian government source said on Friday.

Published: 31 May 2024 17:13 CEST
Govt source says Italy considering 'reciprocal plan' to swap refugees with US

“A reciprocal plan is currently being studied, according to which the US would host refugees present in Libya who want to go to Europe,” a source in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

At the same time, “some European Mediterranean states would host a few dozen South American refugees”, the source said.

The source was responding to a report by CBS News in the United States, which suggested that President Joe Biden’s administration was also in talks with Greece.

CBS said refugees would be selected at immigration offices set up by the United States last year in four Latin American countries.

It said 500 people could be sent both to Italy and Greece, though the source in Meloni’s office said that figure was “completely misleading”.

Rome is looking to accept “about 20 Venezuelan refugees of Italian origin” who would be able to work in Italy, the source said.

The plan would be “very advantageous for Italy and the European states of first arrival”, the source said, without elaborating.

A separate source at Italy’s interior ministry said Rome would “never assent to the relocation of hundreds of people on its national territory in view of its already considerable efforts in receiving migrants”.

In Athens, Greek migration minister Dimitris Kairidis dismissed the report.

“The CBS report is untrue. There is neither an agreement nor a request from the US to resettle legal immigrants in Greece,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 2.4 million migrants crossed the southern US border in 2023 alone, largely from Central America and Venezuela, as they flee poverty, violence and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change.

Meanwhile Italy is among the first ports of call for migrants crossing from North Africa into Europe, recording almost 160,000 irregular arrivals by boat across the central Mediterranean last year.

Meloni’s government has made stopping irregular migration into Italy a priority.

It has sought to speed up asylum processing requests while signing new deals with departure countries.

It has also tried to deter migrants by setting up a new processing centre in Albania and limiting the activities of charities that operate rescue boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nearly 21,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year, compared to more than 50,000 in the same period last year, according to government data.

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