Italy quarrels with EU leaders over immigration

At a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg to discuss migration pressures, Italy's Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Maroni accused his counterparts of failing to show solidarity with Rome.

"Italy has been left alone," he said. "I wonder whether in this situation it makes sense to remain in the European Union."

Most EU governments say people arriving in Italy are mostly economic migrants seeking jobs in Europe, and not asylum seekers or refugees in need of international protection.

They say Rome should be able to deal with them, and have reacted angrily to Italy's decision to start offering them temporary residence permits that would allow them to travel freely throughout most of the EU.

The Times is also reporting that Maroni also avoided Maltese Foreign Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici at the EU’s Home Affairs Ministers' meeting, and refused to reply to questions on the latest spate between the two countries on illegal immigration.

Divisions are rapidly deepening among the EU's 27 governments on how to tackle the refugee crisis in the region, with some capitals worried that offering shelter to too many migrants will encourage more to attempt to enter Europe illegally.

But the European Commission has said EU capitals need to overcome differences and prepare to resettle some of the almost half a million people displaced by violence so far.

Italy has borne the brunt of the crisis and wants other EU governments to help it care for some 25,000 people who have arrived on its shores as a result of turmoil in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

"I was quite dissatisfied with Italy's surprise decision to pass on its problems to all the others without prior notice," Dutch Minister for Immigration and Asylum Gerd Leers said, while Austria's Interior Minister Maria Fekter said Vienna would investigate how it can stop migrants from crossing its borders.

"We will look into what extent we will recognise visas issued by Italians, especially whether we allow in people who cannot feed themselves," Leers said. "This would be a feeding ground for crime which I cannot allow."

However, the EU's home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, warned EU governments would have to consider taking in more people from North Africa in the future, while stressing the bloc had already assisted Italy with funds and equipment.

She pressed interior ministers to offer shelter to thousands of refugees stranded at Libya's border with Tunisia, mostly poor foreign workers from Asia and other parts of Africa who had worked on Libya's oil fields and construction sites.

Malmström has failed to secure sufficient offers from EU capitals to resettle 800 people stranded on Malta, a tiny EU member state.

"Resettlement from Tunisia is a no-go area for most EU states. It is politically unrealistic," said on EU diplomat familiar with Monday's discussions.

Ministers however managed to agree on Monday on the need to find more cash for the bloc's border control agency, Frontex, to strengthen its ability to patrol the Mediterranean Sea.