Meloni clashes with Sanchez over migrant amnesty

 

Meloni clashes with Sanchez over migrant amnesty

 

Italian and Spanish prime ministers cross swords over migration

 

Politics

Nicoletta Ionta

https://www.euractiv.com/news/meloni-clashes-with-sanchez-over-migrant-amnesty/

Magnus Lund Nielsen

Euractiv

 

Giorgia Meloni took a swipe at Pedro Sánchez during bad-tempered exchanges on migration among EU leaders, arguing that Spain’s decision to regularise hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants would have consequences beyond its own borders.

 

What Spain is doing “affects its neighbours,” the Italian prime minister said, referring to the Spanish government’s approval of the mass regularisation scheme expected to grant legal status to around 500,000 undocumented foreign residents.

 

According to EU diplomats, the discussion began when Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, praised Roberta Metsola and the European Parliament for passing legislation allowing the setting of deportation centres outside Europe.

 

She went on to ask that migration feature more prominently on European Council agendas, arguing that leaders should pay closer attention to the policies pursued by other EU capitals.

 

Sánchez criticised the hardline stance, prompting Meloni to back Frederiksen while attacking Spain’s migrant friendly policy for having an impact in the wider Schengen zone.

 

The remarks came only days after MEPs signed off on the EU’s returns regulation, the so-called “missing piece” of new Migration and Asylum Pact, which entered into force on June 12.

 

The new regulation paves the way for so-called return hubs – facilities in third countries where rejected asylum seekers could be transferred pending deportation – a key demand of governments pushing for a tougher migration policy. The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups and left-leaning lawmakers, who argue it risks undermining migrants’ rights.

 

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