BERLIN (Reuters) – Migrant aid non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the Mediterranean must return rescued migrants to their flag state, rather than Italy, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio said on Friday Tajani, while Rome opposes the financial support offered by Berlin.
“This is the only possible solution,” he said, arguing that several of these NGOs are registered in Germany.
These comments come after a meeting on Thursday between Antonio Tajani and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock who confirmed the “imminent” payment of German funds to NGOs helping migrants in the Mediterranean.
The sharp rise in the number of migrant arrivals this year has sparked disagreements in Europe over humanitarian aid boats trying to help asylum seekers in one of the most dangerous crossings in the world.
Earlier this week, the President of the Italian Council, Giorgia Meloni, wrote to the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to express her “astonishment” at the German initiative aimed at financing charitable associations helping migrants.
Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday that her government was pushing at EU level for a new European sea rescue mission to be set up.
“Until this mission exists, civilian sea rescuers in the Mediterranean are carrying out life-saving tasks,” she said.
“No one is waging a war against NGOs, we are only saying that they cannot act as a kind of magnet to attract irregular migrants,” replied Antonio Tajani.
Italy’s conservative government is taking a hard line on immigration amid the influx of arrivals from North Africa and has also restricted the activities of migrant rescue NGOs.
Earlier this week, Andrea Crippa, the deputy secretary of the League party, which is a member of the governing coalition, cited Germany’s Nazi past to criticize Berlin, calling its support for NGOs a hostile attempt to destabilize the government Italian conservative.
While “80 years ago, the German government decided to invade (other) states with the army”, it “finances today the invasion of illegal immigrants” in countries led by governments that ‘He doesn’t like it,’ he told the Italian online newspaper Affaritaliani.
(Report by Friederike Heine and Francesca Piscioneri, French version Nathan Vifflin, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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