(by Stefania Fumo)
(ANSAmed) – BERLIN, AUGUST 22 – Interior Minister Angelino
Alfano on Friday declined to comment on a German politician’s
criticism of his alleged failure to stick to EU law on asylum
seekers.
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann earlier said
Alfano is “barefaced” in his complaints about high numbers of
refugee arrivals to Italy while at the same time, Rome
reportedly fails to meet European norms on the issue.

“It is rather barefaced that…(Alfano) should on the one
hand complain about the heavy burden deriving from the arrival
of refugees across the Mediterranean while on the other, he is
not concerned with respecting European regulations on asylum
matters,” said Herrmann, who is from the Christian Social Union
of Bavaria (CSU), the smaller sister party to Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU).
Alfano recently said Italy’s Mare Nostrum migrant
search-and-rescue operation would stop, and the European Union’s
border agency Frontex should step in to cope with an influx of
asylum seekers from North Africa, many originally from Syria and
Iraq.

The EU has replied that Frontex is currently too small to
take over the task.

Hermann, in an interview with DPA news agency, also accused
Rome of deliberately ignoring standard refugee procedures, such
as fingerprinting, in order to allow individuals to leave Italy
and seek asylum in other countries.

“Italy in many cases intentionally does not take personal
data and fingerprints from refugees to enable them to seek
asylum in another country,” he said.
He went on to say that European norms call for “the country
of first entry (into the EU) to be responsible for asylum
procedures,” and Italy is receiving EU funds for this purpose.

The Bavarian politician also cited what he called
“discrepancies” in official numbers.
While Germany in 2013 processed over 126,000 asylum
requests, Italy only racked up 27,930, against a total of 60,000
refugees that reached Italy last year, according to United
Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) figures.
UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said in March that out of the
industrialized nations, “Germany is the one that takes in the
most refugees”.

For this reason, other EU member States “can rightfully ask
Italy to show solidarity in respecting the joint European asylum
system that Union countries have agreed on,” said Herrmann.

This is all the more true as ongoing wars in the Middle
East and “the brutal violence” being perpetrated by Islamic
State (ISIS) fundamentalist militias in Iraq will only increase
the flow of refugees to Europe, the regional minister pointed
out.

“We have no comment,” Italy’s interior ministry replied.

“The remarks were made by a regional minister, not a German
government minister”. (ANSAmed).