Merkel ally lashes out at Italy’s ‘mafia methods’

Rescuers help people in the sea after a boat carrying some 250 migrants crashed into rocks as they tried to enter the port of Pantelleria, an island off the southern coast of Italy. A fishing boat that had sailed across the Mediterranean from Libya ran aground yesterday on rocks on the tiny Italian island of Pantelleria, killing two women, the ANSA news agency reported

A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives yesterday hit out at what he called Italy’s “mafia methods” in the row within Europe over how to deal with North African immigrants. Guenter Krings, deputy parliamentary group leader of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), told mass circulation daily Bild that Rome was using “blackmail methods ... that we normally associate with the mafia.” Italy has urged its European Union neighbours to help it cope with a “human tsunami” that has overwhelmed the tiny island of Lampedusa since revolutions erupted in Tunisia and Libya earlier this year. But a diplomatic row erupted last week when Rome announced it would grant six-month residency permits to more than 20,000 Tunisian migrants, which could allow them to travel freely in Europe’s border-free Schengen area. Around 26,000 undocumented migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, including some 21,000 who said they were from Tunisia. “We asked for solidarity, but we were told to sort it out on our own,” Italian Interior Minister Roberto said Monday. “I am wondering if there is still any point to being part of the European Union.”