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MILAN / BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany on Sunday denied an Italian newspaper's announcement of its intention to send migrants back to Italy, after the Italian interior minister threatened to deny permission to land planes unauthorized transporting asylum seekers.
PHOTO FILE: Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini spoke at a press conference to approve a new decree on immigration and security measures at the palace Chigi of Rome, September 24, 2018. REUTERS / Alessandro Bianchi / Photo File
La Repubblica reported Saturday that the German refugee agency had sent "dozens of letters" to migrants to inform them of their plans to return to Italy, possibly via charter flights. The first transfer of this type is scheduled for 9 October.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Sunday that Italy would close its airports to all planes carrying migrants from Germany or any other EU country, raising a dispute between the 28 members of the bloc on the sharing of responsibilities for asylum seekers.
"If anyone, in Berlin or Brussels, thinks of immersing dozens of immigrants in Italy via unauthorized charter flights, he should know that there are not any and that there will be no airport available, "Salvini said in a statement.
"We will close the airports as we closed the ports."
Both countries are working on an agreement under which Germany would return to Italy migrants who have already applied for asylum in that country, but the agreement has not yet been signed.
"No transfer flights are planned for Italy in the coming days," wrote a spokesman for the German Interior Ministry in an e-mail.
German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, said last month that an agreement had been reached with Italy and that it was expected that "it will be the first time". it will be signed soon. But Salvini denied this a day later, demanding more concessions from Germany.
The Italian minister said at the time that he had received assurances from Germany that for every migrant returned to Italy, the German authorities would accept a good asylum seeker faith from Italy.
But Salvini wants concessions on two other issues: a revision of the European Union's Dublin Treaty on the way Europe deals with asylum applications and the EU's naval mission Sophia, which patrols the Mediterranean.
Seehofer urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to intervene to end the stalemate.
"The agreement has been negotiated and follows the same principle as with Greece," said Seehofer to the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. "We are sending refugees back to Italy, but we must receive the same number of rescues at sea."
He added: "But now, Salvini suddenly says: I will only sign if Germany supports Italy's position on asylum in the European Union. Heads of Government are required to act (to solve this problem). "
Italy is seeking to revise the Dublin Treaty in order to automatically distribute asylum seekers across the EU, instead of forcing them to stay in the country where they first touched Europe, such as this is the case now.
He also wants to change the mandate of the Sophia operation, which now states that all migrants hosted in the Mediterranean should be driven to Italy.
Italy has become the main route to Europe for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers arriving by sea from the other main road linking Turkey to the country. Greece was largely closed in 2016. However, their numbers have dropped significantly in the last 12 months.
Report by Agnieszka Flak in Milan and Joseph Nasr in Berlin, edited by Susan Fenton, William Maclean
