Paul KeenanScaremongering and shameful silence are causing tension, writes Paul Keenan
'Solidarity’ was the word on all lips in Italy last week. As media outlets continued to record the seemingly relentless flow of migrants across the Mediterranean, solidarity with the pathetic masses washing up on beaches of Europe was urged.
Sadly, the calls, from politicians and prelates, were not requests for ready humanitarian action to build on the rescue missions launched by EU navies, Ireland’s included, but angry pleadings against a growing EU reticence to do more than pluck drowning migrants from the waves and deposit them on shores other than their own.
With Italy continuing to bear the brunt of northbound trafficking in human misery from the Libyan coast this year and last, actions within and without have served to undermine the grand image of a post-World War II Europe united in harmony and continental commonality.
With European leaders apparently still waiting for the illuminating flash of inspiration towards stemming the human tide (and caught on the horns of the dilemma of saving those at sea and thereby encouraging ever more migrants to set out in the hope of rescue and resettlement), Italy has become the first to suffer the divisive consequences of indecision, with extremist elements stepping into the vacuum.
Witness the electoral gains, in regional polls, for the country’s Northern League towards the end of May. A right-wing grouping led by the vitriolic Matteo Salvini, the league has built both on continuing weaknesses of the Italian economy to attack the government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and on the migrant crisis to boost itself. Mr Salvini is not slow in denouncing Muslims and calling for Roma camps to be burned to sell himself to a population looking for Italy’s renewal.
Crisis
The migrant crisis plays directly into this. It is undeniable that Italy’s migrant infrastructure is creaking under the pressure, with one commentator pointing out that far more migrants have made their way under their own steam to northern provinces and cities as have been transferred under the normal bureaucratic arrangements.
This in turn has led to much-publicised venting by governors on the issue, with the governor of Lombardy, the Northern League’s Roberto Maroni, issuing orders to local authorities to stop accepting new migrants or risk having their funding slashed. The governor’s comments found favour with other regional leaders, such as those in Liguria and Veneto, who declared they are now unable to accept any more migrants.
Cleaving a middle line between more extreme voices such as Mr Salvini’s – who has described the refugee flow as a “terrible invasion” – and the undeniable crisis that it is for Italy, are members of the bishops’ conference who have led the solidarity calls.
Responding to events in Lombardy – and maybe presaging the violence that subsequently broke out between migrants and police at Milan’s main railway station on June 12 – was Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the conference, who warned that “feeding fear is never good counsel” before stating that “we must face the problems with realism and helpfulness on the part of all”.
His call was echoed by Bishop Antonio Mattiazzo of Padua: “Concerns about security should not exclude the virtue and the duty of solidarity,” he said, reminding all that, “St Anthony [of Padua] himself arrived in Italy as a ‘foreigner’, sailing from Africa and landing in Sicily after a shipwreck.”
Directly addressing those scaremongers who have warned of migrants selling drugs and bringing prostitution to the country, Bishop Mattiazzo added: “It is also strange that some would accuse foreigners of drug dealing, while keeping silent about the fact that Italians are the ones buying it, or taking advantage of foreign women.”
Taking the theme of solidarity further has been Prime Minister Renzi himself. Horrified at events last weekend which saw the virtual sealing of the French-Italian border against migrants attempting to move beyond Italy (causing migrants to stage a sit-down hunger strike before their forced removal by Italian police), and new restrictions on free movement across the Austrian border, Mr Renzi called directly on Europe to do more than it has to date in accepting the burden of migrants arriving on European shores.
Unfortunately, in this, Mr Renzi is fighting against the Dublin Regulation of 1997, under which the EU member state which is the first landing place for an asylum seeker becomes responsible for that particular migrant. Thus, by law, the 50,000-plus landings to date fall to Italy, a signatory of the regulation.
But such rigid legal lines can hardly have been drawn up with the scale of the current human crisis in mind, and Mr Renzi has already called for a redrawing of the Dublin Regulation to take account of the new reality that could conceivably see his country become responsible for over 200,000 migrants by the end of 2015.
He has insisted this, together with the search for a concrete solution to the crisis, be a significant part of the forthcoming summit of European leaders this June 25-26.
As though to emphasise the seriousness of events, Mr Renzi also warned cryptically: “If the European Council chooses solidarity, then good. If it doesn’t, we have a Plan B ready but that would be a wound inflicted on Europe.”
Specifics
No more forthcoming on the specifics of that threat was Italy’s Interior Minister Angelino Alfano who said of the meeting: “If Europe does not fulfil its own responsibilities and show solidarity, it will find a different Italy facing it.”
Bold strategies, then, and not ongoing silence on the part of other EU states are needed if Europe’s record on human rights is not to be tarnished by in-fighting that further victimises those who thought the worst was behind them across the Med.
As Bishop Mattiazzo said: “Being poor is not a sin. But it is a sin to be indifferent and selfish.”