France again warns Italy of “consequences” if it persists in its attitude of rejecting the disembarkation of migrants rescued from the Mediterranean Sea, as happened this past week with the Ocean Viking.
“There will be consequences if Italy persists in this attitude,” says the French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, in an interview published this Sunday by the newspaper Le Parisien, in which she laments “the obstinate rejection and lack of humanity” of the Government of Rome.
Colonna recalls that France has already suspended the device for the relocation of migrants from Italy and has tightened controls at Franco-Italian borders, in the hope that Rome “understands the message.”
“France has asked Europe to decide very quickly on the course to follow,” said the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, in a statement to the BFMTV channel.
He added that Italy “has failed to fulfill its responsibility to its neighbors and its French friends”, so “we must rediscover the meaning of this European cooperation and move forward”.
“Italy does not respect international law or the law of the sea. The rule is that of the nearest safe port, the ship was near the Italian coast,” the Foreign Ministry stressed in the interview.
He stresses that the Italian decision “is shocking” because “the European aid and effort sharing mechanisms work”, as shown by the fact that eleven European countries agreed with France to take in a good part of those rescued from the Ocean Viking.
In addition, the French Foreign Minister accuses the Italian Executive of using “unacceptable methods”, such as the statement in which the head of the Government, Georgia Meloni, “considers that she speaks on our behalf” and “comes into total contradiction with our conversations “.
In the interview, Colonna announces that Iran has arrested two other French citizens (there are already seven in total) during the current wave of citizen protests against the Islamic regime. “If your goal is blackmail, it’s not going to work. It’s a bad way to engage with France.”
On the war in Ukraine, Colonna interprets that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit in Bali this week due to the lack of international support for the invasion.
“There is a growing misunderstanding in the international community of the decisions taken by Russia,” he explains. “I remember the ministerial meeting in July, where Serguei Lavrov (Russian foreign minister) found himself without support and left the summit, isolated,” he says.
Paris will host an international conference on December 13 to support Ukraine, and the French Foreign Minister advances that the main objective will be to “better respond” to the needs of the population to spend the winter, with better coordination of national aid .
A second objective is that the countries that do not provide military aid to Ukraine do send support for the resistance of the population and the reconstruction of the country, and he points to Switzerland or several countries of the Persian Gulf, which will be invited, as an example.
France warns of “consequences” if Italy persists in its migration policy