EU to pay member states €6,000 for every migrant taken in
Brussels also ready to foot bill for ‘controlled centres’ to process asylum claims Migrants disembark from a rescue boat after arriving at Algeciras. Spain is likely to be one of the main beneficiaries of the proposed EU payments
© Reuters Mehreen Khan in Brussels 3 HOURS AGO 14
Italy has dismissed a plan by Brussels to offer EU governments €6,000 for every migrant they take in from boats stranded in the Mediterranean, in a sign that the discord sparked by the migrant crisis is unlikely to be resolved soon.
Responding to the European Commission proposals on how to stem the flow of migrants coming into Europe, Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini, said:
“If they want to give money to someone else let them do so, Italy doesn’t need charity”.
Mr Salvini, who is also the leader of the anti-immigration League, added: “We want to stop the inflows in order to clear the backlog of hundreds of thousands of people. We are not asking for money but for dignity and we are recovering it with our own hands.”
The commission’s plans, published on Tuesday, include helping to foot the bill for creating “controlled centres” for migrants for member states that agree to set them up on their territory. The commission will also pay governments for up to 500 migrants that they rescue from each boat stranded at sea, said an official briefed on the talks. The introduction of the financial incentives came after migrant rescue boats were barred from docking in Italy by Rome’s new populist government. Brussels will offer countries that agree to take some of the rescued people €6,000 per migrant, according to the plans. Spain is likely to be the biggest beneficiary, having taken in more than 1,200 rescued migrants from stranded boats in the Mediterranean in the past week alone. France, Portugal, the Netherlands and Malta have also received smaller numbers from rescues in recent weeks. By offering financial incentives to countries to share the burden, Brussels is hoping to persuade the Italian government to do more to prevent failed asylum seekers who enter Italy from travelling on to other EU member states. The cornerstone of this plan involves frontline migrant states setting up controlled centres on their territory to process asylum claims and to send back failed claimants to their country of origin. The commission will say that it will provide any government that houses the centres the “full support of the EU and EU agencies”, including border guards and security officers paid for with money from the bloc’s common budget.