Salvini says Italy will close airports to unauthorised migrant flights

MILAN/BERLIN: Italy will close its airports to unauthorised planes carrying migrants from Germany, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Sunday, ratcheting up a dispute between the EU partners over how to share responsibility for asylum seekers. The two countries have been working on a deal under which Germany would send back to Italy migrants who have already applied for asylum there, but the accord has yet to be signed. Italian daily La Repubblica reported on Saturday that Germany’s refugee agency had sent “dozens of letters” to migrants advising them of a planned transfer back to Italy, possibly via charter flights. The first such transfer is planned for October 9, it said. “If someone, in Berlin or Brussels, thinks of dumping dozens of immigrants in Italy via unauthorized charter flights, they should know that there is not and there will be no airport available,” Salvini said in a statement. “We will close the airports as we closed the ports.” Germany’s interior ministry and the refugee agency could not immediately be reached for comment on the report in La Repubblica. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said last month that a deal with Italy had been reached and that he expected it to be signed shortly. But Salvini denied that a day later, demanding more concessions from Germany. The Italian minister said at the time that he had received reassurances from Germany that for every migrant it returned to Italy the German authorities would accept a bonafide asylum seeker from Italy. But Salvini wants concessions on two other issues — a revision of both the EU’s Dublin Treaty on how Europe handles asylum requests, and of the EU’s Sophia naval mission which is patrolling the Mediterranean. Seehofer urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to intervene to end the standoff. “The agreement has been negotiated and follows the same principle as with Greece,” Seehofer told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. “We return refugees back to Italy, but we must take in the same number from sea rescues.” He added: “But now Salvini is suddenly saying: I will only sign if Germany backs Italy’s position on asylum in the European Union. The heads of government are required to act (to solve this).” Italy is seeking an overhaul of the Dublin Treaty so that there is an automatic distribution of asylum seekers throughout the EU, instead of requiring them to stay in the country where they first touch European soil, as is the case now. It also wants to change the mandate of Operation Sophia, which at present says that all migrants picked up in the Mediterranean must be taken to Italy. — Reuters