Italy threatens to give Schengen visas to migrants as EU ministers meet

EU interior ministers are due to meet in Luxembourg on Tuesday to discuss how to cope with mass migration across the Mediterranean from Libya, the Guardian reported.

Europe has become embroiled in a worsening feud over the issue, with Italy threatening to issue migrants with temporary visas that would allow them to enter other EU countries if no equitable deal is struck to share the burden.

The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, said that if no equitable deal is struck, Rome would start issuing migrants with temporary visas allowing them to travel elsewhere in Europe, stop receiving the hundreds of boats arriving from Libya and refuse docking for foreign ships rescuing those stranded at sea.

Austria and Hungary are threatening to close their borders to migrants, and France and Switzerland are refusing them entry from Italy. Police are patrolling international rail traffic, flouting the passport-free travel rules governing Europe’s Schengen area.

Reacting to the drowning of more than 800 migrants when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean in April, the European commission delivered radical new proposals last month on quotas for migrants to spread across the EU. Britain, Denmark and Ireland do not need to take part in the scheme under the special EU terms they enjoy, but Dublin has said it will take some in.

The commission’s proposals would start modestly, calling for the distribution across the EU of 60,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum-seekers, 40,000 already in Italy and Greece and 20,000 still to make the Mediterranean crossing.

The figures have been criticized as risibly low – more than 600,000 asylum-seekers entered the EU last year – but the commission’s scheme would establish the principle of a shared burden across the EU for the first time.

Almost 60,000 have already arrived in southern Italy so far this year, more than the equivalent figure for last year. The proposals would redistribute 24,000 from Italy to other countries. Renzi described the figure as a provocation.