France warned Italy of “serious consequences” before the Ocean Viking arrived in the southern port of Toulon. Rome banned entry to the charity ship after it rescued the migrants in the Mediterranean.
That brought an angry response from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, head of Italy’s most right-wing government for decades, who now looks set to push the dispute to the top of the European agenda.
“I was struck by the aggressive reaction of the French government, which in my view is incomprehensible and unjustified,” Meloni told a news conference, adding that Italy cannot be the only destination for African migrants.
The Ocean Viking ship had initially sought access to the coast of Italy, which is closer to where the migrants were picked up, saying health and hygiene conditions on board were rapidly deteriorating.
Italy refused, saying other nations should bear more of the burden that comes with accepting thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa each year.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said France acted out of “humanitarian duty”, criticizing Italy’s stance as “inhumane” and “incomprehensible”, saying the Ocean Viking “is without any doubt in Italy’s search and rescue zone”.
He criticized the Italian authorities for “making migrants wait at sea for 15 days”.
French authorities have pledged to decide the migrants’ fate “very quickly”, assessing their asylum applications within “48 hours”.
On Thursday, Darmanin said nine European countries had pledged to host two-thirds of the migrants — reportedly including 57 children — with the remaining third remaining in France.
Germany will get “over 80”, while Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Luxembourg and Ireland will also contribute in the name of “European solidarity”, he added.
After dozens of requests for berthing were rejected, the charity that operates the ship, SOS Mediterranee, turned to France for help.
France initially said it would evacuate three migrants in need of urgent medical care, with a helicopter taking them and a carer to a hospital in Corsica.
Later Thursday, the Italian government also used the same word — “incomprehensible” — to describe France’s response to allowing a migrant ship to disembark in a French port.
Interior Minister Matteo Piadendozzi said the request was for “234 migrants when Italy has received 90,000 this year alone”.
France suspended a plan to take in 3,500 refugees currently in Italy, part of a European burden-sharing deal, and urged Germany and other EU states to do the same.
“There will be extremely serious consequences for bilateral and European relations,” Darmanin warned, adding that French police would also step up controls at the Italian border.
The rise in tensions echoes European disputes over migrants four years ago, when French President Emmanuel Macron particularly clashed with Italy’s populist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
Salvini, who recently returned to government as Meloni’s deputy, responded to France’s decision to end the migrant swap deal with the sarcastic tweet: “European solidarity.”
France had insisted that, under international maritime law, Rome had to accept the Ocean Viking and the 234 distressed migrants it rescued, mainly after giving access this week to three other rescue ships carrying about 700 people.
But Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said this week that he was sending a message to EU states that they needed to play an even bigger role.
Rome wants “an agreement to define, based on population, how asylum seekers are resettled in different countries,” Tajani said ahead of a meeting of EU ministers next week.
In June, around a dozen EU countries, including France, agreed to welcome migrants arriving in Italy and other main entry points.
So far this year, 164 asylum seekers have been transferred from Italy to other countries in the bloc that have volunteered to take them.
But that’s a tiny fraction of the 88,000 others who have reached its shores so far this year, about 14 percent of that number rescued by NGO ships, according to Italian authorities.
