France and Italy will arrange a "joint mission" to Nigeria, the Italian home affairs minister, Matteo Salvini, announced in Lyon on Tuesday 9 October, following a meeting of the ministers of six member states – Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom – and European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos, indicating an appeasement of bilateral tension over migration matters.
"Nigeria is one of the most problematic countries", because "60,000" of its nationals have arrived in Italy in recent years and we have only managed to expel a "few hundred" of them, Salvini said. Therefore, "having serious and concrete agreements with Nigeria, with the assistance of the European Commission, will be important to the Italian government", he added.
He went on to stress that the most important thing is to stop seeing Italy as a "refugee camp", as was the case before he took up office. This is why an aircraft aiming to return migrants, arrested in Germany, but who applied for asylum in Italy, to Rome will not be landing, he stressed. However, he said that Italy would reopen channels in October to allow women and children fleeing "war zones" to come to Italy.
France considers that the main thing is to achieve a European solution to the management of the migration phenomenon, against a backdrop of tension between Rome and Paris.
"Beyond posturing, the question of immigration will not be resolved nationally. It requires coordination, it is a complex subject of common interest", Philippe said, French news agency AFP reports.
France has accused Rome of blocking the emergence of a European consensus and is urging the Italian government to concretise the conclusions of the European summit of June providing for the creation, in the EU, of 'controlled centres' for migrants rescued in the Mediterranean from the territorial waters of the member states and hence move away from the Italian policy of ports closed to vessels rescuing migrants at sea.
European migration policy is on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs Council to be held in Luxembourg on Friday 12 October (see other article and EUROPE 12109). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Mathieu Bion)