The boat asked for a safe port in France, for lack of a landing solution in Italy. Paris denounces the “unacceptable behavior” of Rome and asks him to “respect his European commitments”.
by Julia Pascual and Allan Kaval (Rome, correspondent)
Cap on France? Tuesday, November 8, at the end of the afternoon, the humanitarian ship Ocean Viking asked Paris to assign a safe port to disembark the 234 people she rescued in the Mediterranean Sea while they were fleeing from Libya and tried to join the European continent. Between October 22 and 26, the boat of NGOs SOS Méditerranée and the Red Cross had carried out six emergency operations at sea with original migrants, in Bangladesh, Eritrea, Syria, Egypt and the Pakistan. “Everyone is exhausted, the situation can degenerate at any time, explains Sophie Beau, co-founder of SOS Mediterranean. People threaten to throw themselves over board, we have come to a break point and no outcome is looming. “
The ship has asked Italy many times to be able to disembark. In vain. He therefore took over the management of France and could arrive off Corsica from November 10. Tuesday afternoon, the Italian agency Ansa had cited, in a dispatch, an anonymous source at the French Ministry of the Interior according to which the French authorities were preparing to “open the port of Marseille to the Ocean Viking ship”. Solicited, Place Beauvau did not confirm this information.
Wednesday morning, government spokesperson Olivier Véran said the French position by asking Italy to “play its role” and “respect its European commitments”, welcoming the Viking Ocean. “The boat is currently in Italian territorial waters, there are extremely clear European rules and which have been accepted by the Italians, who are, in fact, the first beneficiary of a European financial solidarity mechanism”, recalled Mr. Véran, believing that “the current attitude of the Italian government” was “unacceptable”.
recurrent stormy negotiations
Tuesday, the new Italian executive, led by the president of the far -right council Giorgia Meloni, presented as acquired the reception of the boat by France, savoring a political victory. A demonstration that the hard position of Italy facing the NGOs had paid, allowing it to obtain an influence of the French position.
“We strongly appreciate France’s decision to share the responsibility for the migratory emergency, which was rested so far on the shoulders of Italy and some other Mediterranean States”, said Tuesday in a statement, the presidency of the council. “We did not wait for the Meloni government to set up European solidarity in the management of migratory flows, of which Italy is the first beneficiary”, underlined Tuesday Place Beauvau, about a relocation mechanism, however little operational and that the Italian part judges ineffective.
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