The Austrian and Italian Interior Ministers today proposed that migrants rescued at sea be kept on board until a first check on their chances of being granted asylum in the European Union is completed.
Far-right parties, such as the Lega in Italy and the Free Party in Austria, have long pushed for a system under which surviving migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean are sent back to Africa instead of heading to Europe. where they can stay until their asylum applications are considered.
"For those who manage to reach the territorial waters of a European state and are then picked up by a ship, we should use these ships to carry out appropriate checks on whether they are entitled to protection," said Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kikl. He gave a press conference in Vienna with his Italian counterpart, Matteo Salvini.
The Kikl proposal is an alternative to the proposal to set up "regional disembarkation platforms" in Mediterranean ports from where new arrivals would then be distributed to the EU. This proposal seems unlikely to materialize.
"They are taking good care of you on a ship," he said, adding that those who have no chance of being granted asylum should be denied entry to Europe within a few days. Salvini said he supported the idea.
Last week, the Sicilian prosecutor's office officially announced that they were investigating the Minister on the charge of "illegal detention" because he refused to allow about 100 rescued migrants to disembark from an Italian Coast Guard ship.
"I am absolutely in favor of (the proposal). "In fact, I was saying how ironic it was that because I kept a group of migrants on a ship in an Italian port for ten days, an Italian judge put me under investigation for abduction."
Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ-Reuters / ΡΑΓ / ΡΠΑ