The French foreign minister claims that Rome demonstrated a “lack of empathy” by rejecting a ship carrying refugees.
There will be repercussions for Italy if it continues to turn away migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, according to French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
Last month, the new administration in Rome prohibited the Ocean Viking, a ship carrying 234 migrants rescued at sea, from entering Italian ports. In an interview with Le Parisien on Saturday, Colonna described this behavior as a “severe disappointment.” “It’s a startling choice,” she continued.
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Italy respects neither international nor maritime law,” she said, insisting that the ship transporting distressed people from the Middle East and North Africa had to be accepted by the nearest port, which had been an Italian one.
“Because of Italy’s stubborn refusal and lack of humanity,” France had to allow the ship to dock, the foreign minister noted. The Ocean Viking, operated by French group SOS Mediterranee, entered the port of Toulon in southeastern France on Friday.
A remark by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who said it was Paris’s responsibility from the start to take the ship, was “completely contradictory to our conversations,” Colonna asserted.
“If Italy maintains this approach, there will be repercussions,” she warned.
In response to Rome’s actions, Colonna noted that France had already frozen its previous plan to take in 3,500 asylum seekers, who are currently in Italy, and tightened controls at the Franco-Italian border.
Meloni, who came to power on the promise of cracking down on illegal immigration, had earlier decried the move by Paris as “aggressive” and betraying the “European dynamic… of solidarity and sharing.”
The standoff is causing major concerns in Brussels, with European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas saying on Saturday that the EU “cannot allow two member states [to be] fighting each other in public and creating yet another mega political crisis over migration.”
