Italy breaks with EU law after 6,000 migrants arrive in 3 days

HMP Northeye – where the government hopes to house migrants

Italy has broken with EU law to manage the migrant crisis after declaring a state of emergency. This came after 6,000 people crossed the border in 3 days. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the state of emergency would allow for a “more efficient and timely management” of migrant flows.

The decree allows the EU state to bypass some of the bloc’s regulations on public bid processes and regulations allowing the Government to quickly build structures for sheltering, processing and repatriating migrants.

The government set aside £4.4million (€5million) for the measure, which also calls for the appointment of a special commissioner.

Some 31,000 migrants have arrived in the country so far this year, which is four times as many as those that arrived in the same period last year.

Ms Meloni has pressed the EU for more action on migrants after more than 31,000 migrants arrived in the country since the start of this year – four times as many as those that arrived in the same period last year.

More than 3,000 migrants arrived in the last three days.

The UK is also grappling with the issue of migration, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempting to cut the number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK via small boats.

The Government last week unveiled a barge which will be used to house hundreds of migrants in Dorset.

The vessel, which will be used to ease the pressure on hotels, could accommodate 506 migrants in 222 bedrooms on the three-storey vessel, at a reported cost of £20,000 a day.

The use of hotels to house migrants is currently costing the taxpayers £6million per day.

The plan faced backlash from within the Tory party, with one senior Conservative MP branding the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Suella Braverman a “bunch of arrogant motherf***ers”.

Addressing MPs in December, Mr Sunak set out a five-point plan to deal with illegal migration and help speed up the assessment of claims from countries deemed “safe”.

It included “significantly” raising the threshold someone has to meet before being considered trafficked as a slave and processing claims from Albanian nationals in “weeks instead of months”.

He said that illegal migration is “unfair on the British people who play by the rules”.

The Prime Minister said “enough is enough”, adding: “It is not cruel or unkind to want to break the stranglehold of the criminal gangs who trade in human misery and who exploit our system and laws.”

While the UK has announced plans to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, they are yet to materialise.

Campaign groups have also expressed concerns about the plans, with Human Rights Watch calling for the Government to abandon the scheme.

They expressed “grave concerns”, warning that “Rwanda cannot be considered a safe third country to send asylum seekers to, with Human Rights Watch and other actors, including the United States Government, having routinely reported on the serious human rights violations in Rwanda.”

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