Italy's Interior minister Angelino Alfano warns the refugee "system is at risk of collapse" following an 80 per cent spike in the number of arrivals to Italy across the central Mediterranean Sea in the first quarter of this year compared to 2015.
Alfano fears that Syrians headed for Turkey will inetead head for Libya for an even more hazardous Mediterranean Sea crossing to Italy.
"How many tens of thousands of people can you keep, year after year? Without returns, either you organize real prisons, or it's obvious that the system will collapse," Mr Alfano said. "It doesn't take a prophet to glimpse the future".
Costs are about to soar. Alfano wants to secure new deals with African nations, offering economic aid in exchange for taking back their citizens. Here's a picture that explains everything.
Refugee Crisis in a Single Picture
Underlying image: Business Insider, September 2015.
Taking into consideration fences and walls, boat lifts, airlifts, increase security, border checks, prisons, crime, retention centers, and bribes to countries for taking back refugees: what's this going to cost?
Italy Seeks Greek-Style Solution
The Financial Times reports Italy Pleads for Greek-Style Push to Return its Migrants.
In an interview with the FT, Angelino Alfano, Italy's interior minister, says the EU should move to secure deals with African nations, which are the source of the vast majority of migrants arriving in Italy, offering economic aid in exchange for taking back their citizens and preventing new flows.
Mr Alfano's request reflects renewed nervousness in Rome about the migration crisis following an 80 per cent spike in the number of arrivals to Italy across the central Mediterranean Sea in the first quarter of this year compared to 2015.
If that increase holds through the warmer spring and summer months, it would smash the record 170,000 migrants who arrived in Italy in 2014, straining resources and creating a political problem for the centre-left government led by Matteo Renzi.
"If Syrians don't want to stay in Turkey but want to try the trip to Europe, they will go around and try to get here from Libya," Mr Alfano said. "We still don't have any evidence that this is happening, but we are monitoring."
"Irregular [migrants] have to be kept in closed camps from where they cannot escape. So how many tens of thousands of people can you keep, year after year? Without returns, either you organise real prisons, or it's obvious that the system will collapse," Mr Alfano said. "It doesn't take a prophet to glimpse the future".
Cost Analysis
Apparently it does take a prophet because Chancellor Merkel still doesn't get it. And I have yet to see a complete analysis of the cost of these schemes, from anyone.
New and Proposed Processes
- Greece will return refugees to Turkey
- On a one-for-one basis, Turkey will take those refugees and send them to Germany.
- Turkey, (off the record as the EI looks the other way), will send refugees back to Syria in violation of international law.
- Seeking news ways to get to the EU, Syrian refugees will attempt to get to Italy instead of Greece.
- Italy will send those refugees back to Turkey where they presumably will be part of the existing one-for-one swap with the coalition of the willing (Germany).
- Italy will return non-Syrians to Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt after bribing those countries with money.
- In an effort to spread around the refugees monetary bribes go out to at least 10 countries.
One country stands out in these preposterous scheme. Saudi Arabia, where art thou?
