The case concerning relocations have become another political hot potato, with reference to the mechanism of redistribution to other European countries – the quota of migrants each should take of those that had landed in Italy.
Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese has always made this instrument her strong point. Already from the first days of work at the Interior Ministry, where the former prefect of Milan arrived after the establishment of the Conte II government in early September, Lamorgese focused all her attention on relocations.
This is because from Berlin, the German political class had arrived to help the new Italian executive on a delicate issue such as immigration. But in fact, the organisation of a summit by the Germans, that of September 23 in Malta, has not yielded the expected results.
On the contrary, from that meeting, held between the interior ministers of Malta, Italy, Germany, France and Finland, with the representative of Helsinki present as president of the EU, nothing more than a draft appeared, completely unrelated to the set objectives.
Instead, participants started talking about an automatic and mandatory mechanism for relocations, but everything was then put to the judgment of the EU interior ministers. And in the Council of 8 October last, only resounding problems were heard from the European side, hence the failure of the Malta summit.
And yet, Lamorgese has continued to insist on the “success” of the meeting held in Valletta in September. The interior minister has repeatedly talked about Malta’s “historic turning point” to justify the release of data from non-governmental organisation ships entering Italy.
In fact, Luciana Lamorgese said that currently, unlike before, as soon as a NGO vessel enters the country, Europe immediately shows solidarity for relocations.
But the numbers , which should support the vision of the occupant of the Interior Ministry, contradict this state of affairs: the relocations have not increased decisively compared to the past years, and at the same time it is good to point out that with the ministries Minniti and Salvini, quotas were established for relocation to other European countries too.
Moreover – and here the political bias is evident – doubts about the actual relocation of migrants that had arrived in recent months have been advanced by the League: “Lamorgese talks about relocations that work. Evidently it refers to the immigrants that Germany has announced to have sent back to Italy with six charter flights from October to today,” Senator Stefano Candiani and Deputy Nicola Molteni, both undersecretary of the former executive, declared in a press release .
“We are ready to present a question: is it not that the immigrants that have landed in Italy and that some European countries have said they want to welcome, are real only on paper? How many were actually transferred? Lamorgese speaks of 170 transfers by the end of the year: but are they part of the immigrants who have arrived in the last few months or are they part of the agreements signed by Salvini?”
“For now, the only certain result of Minister Lamorgese is the increase in landings: in September 2 498 against the 947 of September 2018, to October 2 017 against the 1 007 of October 2018, to November 1 232 against the 980 of November 2019,” concluded Candiano and Molteni.