Giorgia Meloni has been accused of scoring “a spectacular own goal” after European countries started sending failed asylum seekers back to Italy.
Austria, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Switzerland are returning migrants to Italy under the provisions of the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact, which came into force two months ago. On Friday, the Netherlands announced that it intended to do the same.
Under the so-called Dublin rules, migrants are meant to lodge their asylum claims in the first EU country they reach – which is often Italy – and can be returned there if they subsequently travel to other parts of Europe.
The Italian opposition claims the migrant returns are a form of retribution for the hard line that the Italian government took against Spain in the wake of the Ceuta crisis, when around 80,000 migrants stormed into Spain’s tiny territory on the coast of Morocco.
Ms Meloni’s conservative coalition insists that is nonsense, saying that the suspension of Schengen free travel with Spain is separate from the return of failed asylum seekers from Germany, Austria and the other countries.
“Schengen and the Pact on Migration and Asylum are two completely separate things and have nothing to do with each other,” Ms Meloni wrote on social media on Friday. She said the migration pact would overall be good for Italy and other countries of first arrival because it permits the swifter repatriation of failed asylum seekers.
Giorgia Meloni’s opponents have claimed that her actions will cause migrants to ‘boomerang’ back to Italy – Remo Casilli/Reuters
The government argues that the numbers involved are modest – four migrants have been sent back by Austria and another three by Germany. The coalition insists that only migrants who left Italy and went to other countries after the migration pact came into force on June 12 can be legally returned to Italian soil.
Critics say the regulations are open to interpretation and that up to 10,000 failed asylum seekers could be sent back to Italy.
That would leave the government, which was elected on the promise of cracking down on illegal migration, with a serious headache, months before the next general election.
“Meloni has scored a spectacular own goal,” said Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister who now leads an opposition party called Italia Viva.
Mr Renzi said the coalition had adopted a hardline towards Madrid in the aftermath of the Ceuta crisis last month as a way of trying to compete with Roberto Vannacci, a former special forces commander whose new hard-Right party is rising in popularity and threatening to outflank the coalition.
“To try to keep up with Vannacci, she broke European rules [on suspending Schengen]. And now Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Finland are responding tit for tat. Well done Giorgia, great work.”
Elly Schlein, the head of the Democratic Party, the main opposition force, said the prime minister’s uncompromising stance towards Spain had become a “boomerang”, with Italy now receiving similarly hardline treatment from other European countries.
Ms Meloni had “created a dangerous precedent for Europe” when she suspended free movement with Spain, she said.
Pierfrancesco Majorino, the Democratic Party’s migration spokesman, said: “The game being played against Vannacci has become more extreme – it’s now a competition as to who can be more fascist. But the outcome is disastrous for Italy.”
The tough approach to Madrid was intended to prevent any Ceuta migrants from reaching Italy but had in fact backfired, with failed asylum seekers from other countries now being sent back to Italy, said Giuseppe Conte, a former premier who leads the Five Star Movement, another opposition party.
So far, only a few migrants have been returned to Italy, but the number is likely to grow. The migration pact, which came into force in June, makes such returns easier and faster.
It could open up a fresh fracture between southern European countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain, where migrants first land, and northern countries, where the migrants often aspire to move to.
“Sweden has transferred migrants to Italy, and we intend to continue doing so, in accordance with the provisions of the Pact on Immigration and Asylum,” said a spokesman for Johan Forssell, the Swedish migration minister. “From a Swedish perspective, this is nothing new, but since the European pact came into force, transfers under the Dublin Regulation have worked better.”
The Finnish interior ministry said: “We believe that the entry into force of the EU regulation on asylum and migration management allows the resumption of transfers to Italy. These transfers are currently being prepared.”
Italy could be forced to accept up to 10,000 failed asylum seekers, according to how the new regulations are applied, said the leading daily La Repubblica.
Italy has a particular beef with Berlin, pointing out that of the thousands of migrants who are rescued in the Mediterranean after they try to cross by boat from North Africa, many are picked up by German non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Between October 2022, when Ms Meloni was elected prime minister, and this month, more than 22,000 migrants were landed in Italy by German NGO rescue vessels – 53 per cent of the total.
The Meloni government argues that migrants brought ashore by German humanitarian groups should be Germany’s responsibility.