Italy latest to threaten new border controls

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Italy threatened Tuesday to suspend the Schengen agreement at its borders with Austria and France local officials said after the EU failed to agree on the dispersal of 120000 refugees under a quota system.

Italy said it was willing to "to send squads of police and customs agents" to the Brenner and Ventimiglia crossings an Interior Ministry source told Anadolu Agency under customary condition of anonymity.

Germany introduced temporary border controls Monday. Austria Netherlands and Slovakia followed suit Tuesday with France also considering reimposing checks -- threatening the status of Europe’s passport-free zone created by the Schengen treaty.

Italy’s threat came after EU ministers failed to reach agreement on relocating 120000 refugees from "frontline" member states Italy and Greece to other countries under a quota system. The issue will come up for discussion again next month.

An earlier plan to relocate 40000 was agreed in Brussels on Monday but some members -- primarily central and eastern European states -- resisted a scheme for a greater number.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said he was not "fully satisfied" with the results of the EU emergency summit.

"Some east European countries pulled out though we did obtain some positive results such as the decision that 24000 asylum seekers will leave and that repatriations will be done at the expense of the EU" Alfano said.

"In the next two months there will be the first redistribution to Europe of people asking for asylum from Italy and then we will launch the hotspots sorting centers where one will distinguish those who have the right of asylum from those who instead will be repatriated."

Migrant arrivals in Italy have been reduced to a trickle in recent days which Alfano has attributed to the arrests of more than 400 people smugglers in Italy since the start of the year. This has supposedly seen a switch from the Libya-Italy Mediterranean route to the Balkans route into Europe.

In this period Italy has repatriated more than 9000 foreigners either by turning them away at the border or by deporting them from within Italy Alfano said last week.

By John Phillips