Mediaboss Marketing

Italy is grappling with an influx, with UN figures revealing more than 94,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean into the nation so far this year.

And more than 2,300 have died while trying to attempt the perilous crossing.

At its shortest distance, the EU country is a mere 290 miles from the coast of Libya, a largely lawless country which has seen the number of people smugglers rocket.

Given the short distance to the EU from the North African coast, Italy is dealing with a higher number of migrants on their shores when compared to other countries on the continent, particularly northern Europe.

GETTY

Getty Images

1 of 11

Refugees and migrants wait in a small rubber boat to be rescued off Lampedusa, Italy

Rome has pleaded with Brussels and its neighbours for help in dealing with the influx, with many politicians voicing their frustration over what they see as being abandoned to deal with the issue themselves.

President of political party Fratelli dItalia, or Brothers of Italy, lamented the situation in the country.

Giorgia Meloni said: Italy is now the refugee camp of Europe."

GETTY

Fellow politician Alessandro Di Battista, from the M5S party, took a swipe at Paris over the situation.

He said: "France gets the oil while Italy keeps the boats.

His comments are indicative over infighting among EU countries, with Italy viewing France as having its claws in Libyas lucrative oil trade.

Italy is now the refugee camp of Europe

Giorgia Meloni

Once producing some 1.6 million barrels a day of the black gold, production plummeted after dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled by an international coalition in 2011.

During the action to topple Gaddafi, Paris led the NATO airstrikes with the French Air Force flying a third of NATO sorties.

Despite a shaky recovery, production has recovered to 1.4 million barrels a day, and makes up 80 per cent of Libyas GDP.

GETTY

Libya has become fractured and unstable, but oil production remains its key export and props up its fragile economy.

But Italy bitterly views France as profiteering off the oil, while it gets saddled with the migrants who come over in their thousands.

Last year French company Technip has signed a $500million (380n) deal to refurbish an oil platform off the coast off Libya, which includes Libya's National Oil Company.

Despite Italian firm ENI part of the consortium, France is seen at the forefront of the project, with Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault saying at the time: The project demonstrates the desire of French companies to contribute to the petroleum sector, the backbone of the Libyan economy.

The boost was widely seen as French attempts to prop up the economy, giving it a much needed boost.

But the current situation in the Mediterranean has led the desperate Italian government to toy with the idea of issuing 200,000 temporary migrant visas for onwards travel within Europe, in a bid to force other countries to take on more responsibility.

GETTY

And the latest measure to tackle the rising numbers has seen a fleet of Italian ships in a de facto battle with Libyan vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, after the Italian government ordered the Navy to try to stop ships making the journey across the water.

In response General Kalifa Haftar, who controls most of the east of Libya, ordered Libyan forces to bomb any Italian ships part of the mission.

The Libyan National Army said in a statement: Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, issues orders to the Libyan naval bases in Tobruk, Benghazi, Ras Lanuf and Tripoli to confront any marine unit that enters the Libyan waters without the permission of the army.

Go here to see the original:
'France gets the oil & Italy keeps the boats!' Italian MPs blast Paris over migrant crisis - Express.co.uk

With Italy now bearing the brunt, the Italian [prime minister] has called for other EU states to help. But intra-EU cohesion has been lacking, say HSBCs analysts. Financial support to countries with external borders has been low. And, so far, only 25,000 of the 160,000 refugees that were due to be distributed across the EU have actually moved, meaning most remain in their country of arrival.

Many of the more than a million migrants that have settled in Germany over the past few years were Syrians, Afghans, and Iraqis fleeing war. By contrast, the vast majority of recent arrivals into Italy come from Africa, where the distinction between refugees and economic migrants is not clear-cut, the analysts note.

This is an important distinction. After Emmanuel Macron defeated rightwing populist Marine Le Pen in May elections to become the president of France, and the party of far-right politician Geert Wilders underperformed in Dutch parliamentary elections, some assumed populisms momentum in Europe, fueled by anti-immigration sentiment, was waning. This is premature, says HSBC.

Anxiety about immigration could play into the hands of populist, anti-EU parties as Italy gears up for a general election due in May (but may be called earlier).

Italy is the euro zones third-largest economy, with public debt of some 2.3 trillion ($2.7 trillion). The populist 5 Star Movement, which has topped several pre-election opinion polls this year, once called for a referendum on Italys euro membership if it won power, although it has backed off from this in recent months. The more vehemently anti-immigration, anti-euro Northern Leaguewhich is polling at nearly 15%is clearer about wanting Italy to scrap the euro and quit the EU.

If Italy left the euro, its new currency would swiftly depreciate, boosting its already enormous euro-denominated debt load. The countrys extensive financial connections with the rest of the euro zone mean that the turmoil would spread far. Oxford Economics says that if Italy left the euro, it could cut 0.4% from global GDP.

Thats what could be at stake as eurosceptic populists bolster their support in response to Italys migrant crisis. Reflecting the popular mood, the governing center-left party has itself begun speaking in harsher terms about immigration. It dispatched navy ships to Libyan waters this week to help local forces deter boats from launching. A new rule also require rescue craft run by NGOs in the Mediterranean to carry police on them, to ensure that they are not abetting people smugglers. A German group that didnt comply had its boat seized recently by the Italian coast guard.

Original post:
Italy is bearing the brunt of Europe's migrant crisis, boosting populists with radical ideas - Quartz

The migrants, mainly refugees, who have come to Germany since the beginning of 2015 will take time to integrate into society. And not all of them will. But eventually they could help solve the countrys problems of a shrinking workforce due to a declining population.

The migrant crisis has added hundreds of thousands of people to European countries populations in under two years. Germany alone had 1.2 million asylum applications from the beginning of 2015 until the end of May 2017, 1.5% of the German population. Across 28 European Union countries, 2.6 million people filed for asylum in that period.

Before the 2015 refugee crisis, which was classed as worse than the one following World War II, Germanys population was predicted to drop consistently for decades. That would pose a problem because fewer people would be joining the workforce, paying taxes, and helping pay for pensions.

Its doubtful that the refugee influx could help with Germanys demographic problem in the long term; the countrys birthrate is just too low and it has a large baby-boom population which will die off. But at least for the short term, recent revisions to population numbers and birth rates show that the unprecedented refugee crisis is making a tangible impact.

As a new report from HSBC titled EU Migrant Crisis: A new phase brings new challenges points out, the UN now predicts that the German population will rise to 83 million in 2020, from around 81 million currently, after previously being estimated to drop to 80 million. Germanys fertility rate rose to a 33-year high in 2015, thanks in large part to immigrants.

Of course, those people still need to be integrated into the workforce. The headline figures arent promising: Only 9% of migrants who arrived in 2015 have found a job so far, according to a German Institute for Employment Research (IAB) survey, cited by HSBC.

But HSBCs analysts argue that most of these migrants are currently in training programs and Germanys education system is well-equipped to train people on both academic and vocational paths. For the latter it has apprenticeship systems that train people in bulk for jobs the economy needs. So there should soon be a glut of workers ready to help Germany.

The litmus test will be whether those people are ready to get to work when the training programs come to an end, warns the report. However, it says, German unemployment is so low, at 3.9%, that the country can withstand a rise in unemployment if not all the new trainees can immediately find work.

See the original post here:
Migrants are poised to kickstart the solution for Germany's chronic workforce problem - Quartz

JUDY WOODRUFF: Italys Parliament today approved a plan to send a naval task force to Libya to crack down on smugglers who send thousands of migrants on a deadly journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. Italy put stricter rules around rescue ships run by charities in the area.

Amid this, a ship containing anti-immigrant activists is heading towards Libya on a mission to return migrants.

From Sicily, special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT: At Trapani in Western Sicily, the routine rarely varies. Survivors of a disaster off the Libyan coast disembark from a charity ship. The injured and traumatized make landfall first. And then, shielded from the living by a line of hearses, come the dead.

Save the Children spokesman Rik Goverde:

RIK GOVERDE, Save the Children: They probably died of drowning, in combination with chemical burns, which is when seawater and fuel, when they react, they get some bodies were just without skin. It was terrible.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The migrants were lifted from a deflating dinghy by rescuers from the Spanish charity Proactiva.

WOMAN: I am pregnant. I am dying.

MALCOLM BRABANT: So far this year, almost 2,400 have drowned in the Mediterranean. Last year, the death toll was 5,000.

WOMAN: There is 10 dead bodies at the boat. Three jump inside the water. The rest are inside the boat.

LEOLUCA ORLANDO, Mayor of Palermo, Sicily: Its a cemetery. Its a place so full of dead people, is a place that is a shame for the European Union. We cannot say we dont know what is now happening in front of our eyes.

MALCOLM BRABANT: At city hall in Sicilys capital, Palermo, Mayor Leoluca Orlando is exasperated by Europes reluctance to share Italys burden.

LEOLUCA ORLANDO: What is sure that, today, some European states, first of all, are responsible for what is happening.

MALCOLM BRABANT: But this new right-wing organization vehemently opposes the mayors open-borders agenda. It is militant about what it sees as the threat to Europes racial identity from Africa.

MAN: Every week, every day, every hour, ships packed with illegal immigrants are flooding the European border. An invasion is taking place.

MAN: This mass migration is changing the face of our continent. Were losing our safety, our way of life. And we will become a minority in our own country.

MALCOLM BRABANT: They call themselves the Identity Generation. Trailed by police and opponents in Sicily, they quietly traveled to Cyprus, where a supporter filmed them.

They believe Europe can stop the influx by emulating Australias military strategy of intercepting migrant boats and returning them to the point of departure. They have chartered a ship called the C-Star, and its reportedly heading from Cyprus towards the Libyan coast. They say they will return any migrants they rescue.

Italian Lorenzo Fiato:

LORENZO FIATO, Italian Identitarian: Since when the NGOs started operating, the deaths in the sea increased. And the illegal immigration became more, more, more a problem. So, breaking the narrative of the NGOs that are literally a taxi service from Libya to Europe is the most important thing to do now.

PROTESTERS: No borders, no nations! Stop deportations!

MALCOLM BRABANT: The left-wing campaign group Avaaz signaled its opposition to the extremists by symbolically blocking the Sicilian port of Catania, from where the C-Star had originally been expected to begin its mission to Libyan waters.

Spokesman Luca Nicotra:

LUCA NICOTRA: We know they are trying to show their best face.

We know they are coming from the worst far-right movement all around Europe, some of them with neo-Nazi pasts. We know that, in May, they tried to literally stop one of the boats here in the port.

MALCOLM BRABANT: That was the Aquarius, jointly operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders.

Many volunteers insist the presence of rescue ships doesnt entice migrants to make the desperate journey. They claim the push factors of conflict, intimidation or poverty in their homelands are stronger.

Dr. Craig Spencer, a public health specialist at Columbia University Hospital in New York, has just spent three months on the vessel.

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: For me, the question is, is it acceptable to you, is it acceptable to anyone to let someone drown? I hope everyone would answer no, that, no, its not acceptable to allow humans, children, even your worst enemy to drown unaccompanied in the middle of the Mediterranean.

MALCOLM BRABANT: But one Sicilian prosecutor is investigating allegations of collusion between the charities and Libyan smugglers.

Today, a German ship was stopped and searched by the coast guard before leaving the island of Lampedusa. This week, in an attempt to impose more control in the rescue zone, the Italian government has ordered the NGOs to sign a code of conduct.

Marcella Cray leads the Doctors Without Borders team on the Aquarius.

One of the accusations thats sometimes leveled against organizations like yours is that you are in cahoots with the smugglers, that youre communicating with them, so that you can actually pick these people up at sea. What is the situation?

MARCELLA CRAY, Doctors Without Borders: Well, what I can say is that in no way, shape, or form have we ever been in contact with any traffickers or anything like. We are patrolling the international waters north of Libya, looking for boats in distress.

We work with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Rome, and theyre the ones that direct where we go, which rescues we do, and where we go afterwards to bring the people.

MALCOLM BRABANT: So theres never any communication whatsoever?

MARCELLA CRAY: None whatsoever.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The Aquarius sailed for the rescue zone before the code came into force. Doctors Without Borders has refused to sign. It objects to having an armed police officer on board, and claims lives will be lost by a new rule demanding that ships return to Italy immediately once they have rescued migrants.

Previously, they could transfer survivors between ships and spend more time in the search-and-rescue zone. Today, the Italian Parliament approved plans to send a small naval task force into Libyan waters.

The internationally recognized Libyan government asked for help to crack down on traffickers responsible for sending 600,000 migrants to Italy since 2014. The European Union has just pledged to give Italy $120 million to help ease the migration burden.

But the president of the European Parliament has warned that the E.U. is underestimating the scale of this crisis. Antonio Tajani is predicting that millions of Africans will try to come to Europe in the next five years unless urgent action is taken. He says that the way to discourage them from coming is for there to be a massive program of investment in Africa.

This center for unaccompanied minors gave a taste of Italys problems to the man who wants to replace Angela Merkel as Germanys chancellor. Martin Schulz, the former president of the European Parliament, now leads the Social Democratic Party as it heads towards Septembers German general election.

And he visited Sicily late last week.

What do you think about the suggestion that there should be an Australian solution to try to stop the wave of migrants coming across the Mediterranean?

MARTIN SCHULZ, Chairman, Social Democratic Party of Germany: What we need are systems of legal immigration to make the distinction between attempt to join the territory of the European Union outside the legal frame, and the legal frame, which is giving hope, not a guarantee, but hope. And thats whats missing and lacking in Europe.

MALCOLM BRABANT: But do you not think that its worth taking away all the vessels because theyre acting as a pull towards Europe?

MARTIN SCHULZ: I think theres a lot of activities of the security forces, but at the center of all our activities is, first of all, humanitarian aid.

MALCOLM BRABANT: At the memorial for those drowned in the Mediterranean, another question for the man campaigning to be the most powerful figure in the European Union.

Is there anything more that Europe could do to stop the deaths?

MARTIN SCHULZ: Thats the reason why Im here. We need a fair share of the responsibilities.

MALCOLM BRABANT: But much of Europe isnt listening, and isnt softening either.

For the PBS NewsHour, Im Malcolm Brabant in Sicily.

See the rest here:
Political clashes over the migrant crisis turn the Mediterranean into a battleground - PBS NewsHour

Italy on Wednesday sent a navy patrol boat to Libya and seized a German rescue ship in dramatic steps aimed at ending the migrant crisis that has engulfed Europe in recent years.

The crew on board the Iuventa, operated by the NGO Jugend Rettet, is being questioned on the orders of the Italian prosecutor.

While investigators suspect "the crime of clandestine immigration'' was committed by some of the Jugend Rettet boat's crew, prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio told reporters that "my personal conviction was that the motive is humanitarian, exclusively humanitarian.''

Jugend Rettet said on its Facebook page Wednesday that it went to Lampedusa on instructions from the Rome-based maritime rescue coordination center after being asked to help in a search-and-rescue mission on Tuesday.

"As it happened during other stops at this port, the crew was questioned by the local police, which also entered the ship,'' Jugend Rettet said. After a warrant-authorized search of the ship, authorities seized the Iuventa, which will eventually be taken to the main island of Sicily.

Cartosio stressed that no individual members of the crew have been charged and the investigation was ongoing to see which of them might have made contact with smugglers at sea.

"There is no indication [the crew] was paid,'' by smugglers, "nor is there any element to make us think there is a stable tie between the ship and Libyan traffickers," Cartosio said.

New rules for NGOs

It is the first time Italian police have seized a humanitarian boat. The move came amidst growing suspicion over the role non-governmental organizations are playing in picking up migrants off the Libya coast and bringing them to Italian ports.

Jugend Rettet was one of several NGOs which declined this week to sign on to new rules promoted by Italy's interior minister and aimed at ensuring rescue groups don't end up effectively helping human traffickers.

The humanitarian groups say they are only interested in saving lives, warning that thousands of people would die if they were not out at sea. Despite their efforts, 2,200 migrants have died this year trying to reach Europe from northern Africa.

But Italians are getting tired of playing host to thousands of migrants.

Migrant numbers

The number of migrant arrivals in Italy in July was down dramatically on the same month last year, suggesting that efforts to train and better equip the Libyan coast guard could be having an impact.

The Interior Ministry said 11,193 new arrivals had been registered in July, compared with 23,552 in July 2016.

Italy's naval mission to Libya is aimed at holding that trajectory.

Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti said Italy was providing technical support, not seeking to impose a "hostile" naval blockade designed to prevent the departure of migrant boats.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said last week that the naval mission was being organized following a request from Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of conflict-torn Libya's U.N.-backed unity government.

Read more here:
Italy Seizes Boat in Aim to End Migrant Crisis in Europe - Voice of America