Germany will finance non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that support immigrants and refugees who arrive in Italy by sea and are in this country, an initiative that the Italian Government received with “great astonishment.”
Financing of hundreds of thousands of euros is “imminent” for a project to assist migrants on land, in Italy, and another for an NGO that carries out rescues “at sea,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance told the agency. Italian ANSA. German Foreign Affairs, without specifying which organizations will receive the funding.
The same source told ANSA that the ministry is implementing a “financial support program” created by the Bundestag (German parliament) that aims to “support both the rescue of civilians at sea and projects on land for people rescued at sea.” “.
“We have received several requests for financing. In two cases, the analysis of the requests has already been completed. The payment of funds in these two cases is imminent,” he continued, noting that each project will receive between 400,000 and 800,000 euros.
The spokesman for German diplomacy stressed that “saving people in danger at sea is a legal, humanitarian and moral duty.”
“Like the national coastguards, in particular the Italian Coast Guard, civil rescuers in the central Mediterranean also use their boats to save people in danger at sea,” he said.
Several German NGOs are already carrying out search and rescue missions for migrants in the central Mediterranean, along with others from France and Italy.
Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government restricted the organizations’ activities by banning multiple rescues at sea and ordering ships to disembark rescued migrants and refugees in distant ports.
Italy faces a doubling of sea arrivals in 2023, with 132,832 people arriving so far, according to Interior Ministry data.
In the same period, 1,599 migrants and refugees died or disappeared in the central Mediterranean, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
Berlin’s intention was received with “great astonishment” by Rome, sources from Meloni’s executive told ANSA, which will ask the German authorities for clarifications.
“It is expected that the news is unfounded, because the financing by Germany of the activities of NGOs on Italian territory would be a serious anomaly,” considered the sources interviewed by the Italian news agency.
The sources add that supporting the transfer of irregular immigrants to Italy “would represent a very serious anomaly in the dynamics that regulate relations between States at the European and international level.”
On the other hand, the German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, reiterated today that Italy must once again accept asylum seekers from Germany, in accordance with the Dublin Regulation, if Germany wants to resume relocations within the framework of the European mechanism. of voluntary solidarity asylum.
“Italy does not respect readmissions under the Dublin system and, until it does, we will no longer accept refugees” from Italy through the solidarity mechanism, the government official told ZDF radio, quoted by ANSA.
The German Government hopes that Rome “will find [Berlim] “halfway” in fulfilling its “obligations,” said Faeser.
The Dublin Regulation, which dates back to 2013, establishes that asylum applications must be processed by the country of first entry into the European Union, unless otherwise decided, and that this country must readmit asylum seekers who are submitting applications elsewhere.
In 2022, a voluntary solidarity mechanism for the redistribution of asylum seekers was agreed at European level in support of frontline countries, such as Italy, which receive the vast majority of arrivals, especially by sea.
Source: TSF
