Category Archives: Matteo Salvini

Matteo Salvini on the Closing of the Migrant Reception Center at Mineo

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As mentioned in last night’s news feed, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini presided over the closing of the migrant reception center at Mineo in Sicily, which used to be Europe’s largest. Below are excerpts from the occasion, as posted by Ruptly.

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


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The following article from Breitbart (hat tip JD) reports on the closing of the Mineo center:

‘Promise Kept’: Salvini Makes Personal Appearance as Migrant Centre, Once Europe’s Largest, Closes

MINEO, Italy: AFP — What was once Europe’s biggest migrant reception centre, in Mineo in Sicily, is to officially close on Tuesday in the presence of its biggest critic, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

“Promise kept,” Salvini, in government also as deputy prime minister for the past year, said last week when the centre’s final inhabitants were removed, to be sent to another centre in Calabria.

This reception centre, a former housing complex for the US military that resembles an American suburb, is now guarded by Italian troops who block access under a roasting Sicilian sun.

At its peak in 2014, Mineo housed more than 4,100 people.

Its population then steadily dropped. When anti-migrant Salvini and the populist Five Star Movement came to power in June last year, it housed 2,500.

Video transcript:

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Giorgia Meloni: “Sink Them!”

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Giorgia Meloni is the leader of the anti-immigration party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) and a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The following video contains excerpts from an impassioned rant recorded in Ms. Meloni’s car (which I hope has right-hand drive). She is discussing the Alex, a migrant-ferry vessel owned by the Italian NGO “Mediterranea Saving Humans”. Back in May one of its ships was impounded by the government when it landed illegally at Lampedusa. It launched the Alex with the express intention of running the blockade again, in defiance of Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

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


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Below are excerpts from two Breitbart articles about the Alex. The first article:

Italian NGO Defies Salvini, Launches New Migrant Transport Vessel

Italian migrant transport NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans has launched a new vessel into the Mediterranean following the confiscation of their other ship.

The new ship, the Alex, set sail this week to the area off the coast of Libya known as the SAR (search and rescue) zone with the head of the group declaring that the vessel will pick up illegal immigrants and take them to Italian ports, Il Giornale reports.

Article #2:

Salvini to Amend Law to Confiscate Ships From Migrant Transport NGOs

Populist Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini is said to be reworking the security and migration decree to allow the government to confiscate ships flying under the Italian flag.

The new proposal comes as Italian migrant transport NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans announced it would be putting another vessel to sea following the confiscation of the Mare Jonio in May.

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Note: The clip above was composited from selected excerpts taken from the original. The times shown below reflect those in the original video:

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The Sea-Watch 3: Pro and Con

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As everybody knows by now, the migrant-ferry vessel Sea-Watch 3 recently attempted to run the blockade at the port of Lampedusa. Its trustafarian captain, Carola Rackete (whom some wag has dubbed “The Sea Witch”), and her crew were detained by Italian authorities. Ms. Rackete is now under house arrest in Sicily.

Below are three German videos about the events in Lampedusa. Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

The first video is essentially state-sponsored propaganda, as retailed by German TV. Carola Rackete is a heroine. The Italians are backwards and reactionary. And the president of the German Federal Republic reminds the Italians that they are subordinate to the Berlin-Paris Axis, and must do as they are told.

Gottfried Curio of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) does merit a brief sound bite in this clip. However, the government’s official line on the situation dominates the Narrative:


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In the second video, a vlogger named Henryk Stöckl analyzes the events in the harbor at Lampedusa and draws conclusions that run contrary to the official line. I don’t know why Mr. Stöckl hasn’t received a minatory visit from the Stasi Bundespolizei, but for some reason he remains at large:


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The third video features Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the AfD. Ms. Von Storch is marginally less likely than Mr. Stöckl to be arrested for her opinions — only marginally — because she is a sitting member of the Bundestag:


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Video transcript #1:

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Matteo Salvini: “They forced their way through the blockade. They will be arrested.”

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The following video shows a television appearance by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. In it he discusses the migrant-ferry vessel Sea-Watch 3, which recently attempted to force a landing in an Italian port after being refused permission to land by the authorities. Mr. Salvini made these remarks before the German captain of the Sea-Watch 3, Carola Rackete, was arrested. The ship was flying a Dutch flag.

Mr. Salvini rightly identifies the core issue at stake in the incident: Italy’s national sovereignty. If the Italian government does not have the right to decide which vessels are allowed to land at its ports and which are not, then Italy is not a sovereign nation. If its decisions can be overridden by Berlin or Brussels, then the independent country known as “Italy” no longer exists.

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


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Video transcript:

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People-Smugglers Busted and Brought to Sicily

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The Italian government is really cracking down on the trafficking of migrants from Libya across the Mediterranean. Not only are they denying entry to the NGO migrant-ferries, they are intercepting and arresting the people-smugglers before they can return to Libya.

This “hardline” (as the media describe it) policy is guaranteed to inflame the Puir Wee Bairn Syndrome among the media and the chatterati, who treat every migrant as if he were a child, never mind the fact that he has a receding hairline and a full beard. They are adamant that not a single hair on his itty-bitty head be harmed.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini seems immune to the syndrome, fortunately. He’s doing what needs to be done, which is what the voters elected him to do.

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


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Below are excerpts from three articles (hat tips to Insubria and Reader From Chicago) about a related case, that of the Sea-Watch 3, a vessel which flies a Dutch flag and is owned by a German NGO.

First, from ANSA:

Dutch Should Intervene on Sea-Watch Salvini Tells Conte

UNHCR urges Italy to let rescued migrants land on Lampedusa

(ANSA) — Rome, June 21 — Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Friday wrote to Premier Giuseppe Conte reiterating his ‘closed ports’ policy and saying that the Netherlands should deal with the Sea-Watch 3, which has been stuck in international waters south of Lampedusa for nine days with 43 rescued migrants aboard.

Salvini, who is also deputy premier and leader of the anti-migrant League party, said “a fresh energetic initiative of sensibilisation” was needed towards the Netherlands, given that the ship, which is run by a German NGO, flies a Dutch flag.

Meanwhile the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, again urged Italy to let the Sea-Watch migrants land on Lampedusa.

“These desperate people must be disembarked, it is an obligation sanctioned by international norms,” said UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch.

“Italy has a responsibility to let these people land,” said Baloch.

“None of them must return”, he said, to war-torn Libya which has no internationally recognised ports of safety.

Salvini has vowed that “none of them will land in Italy”.

He reiterated Friday, after the UNHCR appeal, that “the interior ministry decides who gets into Italy”.

From France24:

Italy Holds Netherlands, EU ‘Responsible’ For Migrant Boat

Italy’s hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini said he would hold the Netherlands and the European Union “responsible” for the fate of 42 migrants that Rome has blocked from disembarking at Italian ports for over a week.

The Dutch-flagged rescue boat Sea-Watch 3 has been stuck in the Mediterranean since rescuing 53 migrants drifting in an inflatable raft off the coast of Libya on June 12.

And again, from ANSA:

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A New Conservatism: Nationalist, Populist and Converging

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Dr. Turley sums up the realignments that even the New York Times is admitting. From India to Australia to Japan, a form of “Trumpism” is coming into being. And the EU is trembling as it feels the earth moving under its old globalist certainties:

That doesn’t mean the realignments don’t hurt. Some people will be discombobulated; change is inevitable and rocky. Those who can see their loss as an opportunity will flourish. Others, like PM May in Great Britain, could be looking at the end.

With these changes, Gates of Vienna needs to update its categories. No longer is it enough to have the “EU” without naming its constituent nation-states. We will probably have to list “globalism” as a thing, even as it shrinks into something less…well, less global.

Matteo Salvini Stumps for the PVV

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Europeans will go to the polls from May 23 through May 26 to vote in the European parliamentary elections. As part of his preparation for the elections, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is currently travelling all over Europe to meet with the leaders of other “populist” parties — that is, those who support national sovereignty and oppose mass immigration. Today he is in Budapest to consult with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Mr. Salvini made the following video a few days ago in support of Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) in the Netherlands:

Hat tip for the Hungarian article: László.