Matteo Salvini: Italy Must No Longer Be Considered a Refugee Camp

The following video shows excerpts from a press conference held by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini during a G6 interior ministers’ meeting in Lyon on October 8.

Many thanks to FouseSquawk for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:28   And therefore, we do it alone. I have had bilateral meetings with the Polish minister,
00:32   with the representatives of the American government,
00:35   with the British minister, therefore
00:38   If Brussels doesn’t take care of it, we’ll take care of it alone, making agreements two on two.
00:43   I have also spoken with my German colleague. A plane that was supposed to arrive from Berlin this week
00:48   will not arrive. And then we talk about everything.
00:52   I repeat: it is important that Italy no longer be considered
00:56   a refugee camp, as was happening up to a few months ago.
01:15   Yes. It is a motive I don’t understand, why Macron
01:19   accused me and the Italian government of racism and egoism.
01:24   All of the ministers who were at the table today supported the Italian idea
01:28   that economic refugees cannot be accepted in Europe,
01:32   that in Europe are arriving regularly, legally those who are escaping war.
01:36   The most recent data I can give you for Italy is that from Naples, which I visited
01:40   last week, where from July to today, of the hundreds of applications examined
01:46   they have recognized the right to remain in Italy for eight persons out of 100.
01:50   Eight out of 100. Therefore that means that we have interrupted a business
01:54   which surely has enriched some,
01:58   but impoverishes Europe, and if Macron is on the same line,
02:02   let’s fight the same battle. Perhaps he’ll occasionally
02:08   re-open the border at Ventimiglia and stop insulting us.
02:15   One thing at a time. It is now October. It is clear that in May, finally 500 million Europeans
02:19   will be able to change the history of Europe.
02:23   But for the time being it is important for me to change the history of Italy.
02:27   Then in May, we’ll think about it. For certain, the socialists and the left will go home.
02:31   This is for sure.
02:45   Today, on the table, more than one colleague invoked the Australian model
02:49   as a model for stopping the flow, which is exactly the model
02:53   on which I am working, on which the Italian government, therefore I must say,
02:57   while up to four months ago we were
03:01   “racists, “egoists”, “populists”, “ignorant chauvinists”,
03:04   the Italian model for handling immigration
03:08   and closing the ports when needed is now instructive.
03:17   Very good. Sustaining [unintelligible] of immigration we are preparing a common mission
03:21   in Nigeria, which is for Italy, one of the most problematic countries,
03:25   because almost 60,000 immigrants have arrived from Nigeria in recent years,
03:29   and we have succeeded in expelling only a few hundred.
03:33   Therefore to have serious and concrete agreements with Nigeria, with the help
03:37   of the European Commission, for Italy and for the Italian government, will be important.
 

2 thoughts on “Matteo Salvini: Italy Must No Longer Be Considered a Refugee Camp

  1. Buy a Vespa. Italy could use the business, and this product is well made. The Primitives should stick to living on Merkel’s good German taxes.

    • IIRC, a Vespa doesn’t require a driver’s license. Maybe that’s why it is becoming the vehicle of choice of marauding criminals.

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