Playing the Game According to French Rules

The European refugee crisis just keeps getting more and more interesting.

The European Commission — which up until now has granted lavish rights to the Lampedusa boat people and demanded that the Italians comply with them — has decided to uphold the new French rules and place restrictions on the movement of the refugees across borders within the Schengen Area.

This is significant, because it will force Italy to cope with the flood of refugees — which may exceed 250,000 over the next few months — on its own. Even if Brussels coughs up the promised money, the Italians will still be faced with a huge logistical and social crisis. The refugee camps on the mainland have thus far failed to contain the migrants effectively, so that new arrivals frequently break out and scatter to the four winds.

Add to this the fact that the latest batches of immigrants whose boats originate in Libya are mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. This means that Italy will face the likelihood of riots in the camps and the sort of massive crime wave that follows Somalis and Eritreans wherever they migrate.

According to ANSAmed:

EU: Permit No Automatic Right to Travel

BRUSSELS, APRIL 7 - The member States have the right, in general, to issue temporary permits to immigrants, as stated in the directive in question, “but giving out a permit does not implicate that these people have an automatic right to travel”, said EU Commission spokesman Marcin Grabiec in answer to a question whether the temporary permit announced by Italy for North African immigrants would allow them to move freely in the entire Schengen area.

The possibility of accepting this permit as a pass for national territory and the Schengen area depends on the “type of permit that will be issued, and we don’t know that yet”, the spokesman continued. When the immigrants have a temporary permit, “they still must respect certain conditions”, he specified.

The immigrations must have travel documents, they must demonstrate that they have means of subsistence and that they pose no risk to public order. “People who have a permit and respect these conditions”, Grabiec explained, “can travel in the EU member States for a 3-month period. Who does not respect these conditions, must be repatriated to the member State of origin”.

That means, for example, that if the French authorities decide to repatriate immigrants arriving from Italy, they will be sent to Italy.

In other words, the European Union’s official policy supports France and forces Italy to feed, clothe, and house all the culture enrichers who manage to make it to Lampedusa in their dinghies.

The big question is: why does Italy put up with this nonsense?

How many thousands of barbarians will they absorb before the Italians conduct a cost-benefit analysis concerning obedience to EU directives?

There are obvious ways to discourage all those boats from leaving Tunisia, but such measures would violate all those prissy EU human rights laws.

Do the Italians still care? If so, for how much longer?


Hat tip: Insubria.