Immigration security

Italy threatens to veto EU budget without changes in immigration policy - Di Maio

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio on Monday threatened to veto the European Union’s seven-year budget plan should the bloc not do more to share the burden of migrant arrivals.

“In Europe the music will change,” Di Maio wrote on Facebook less than two days after the country’s latest clash with Brussels over who should take in migrants rescued at sea.

“There’s no dogma over the approval of the multi-year budget for the next seven years, which they would like to rush to approve before the European elections,” he said. “We won’t let them do it, and if the immigration situation does not change between now and the near future, the veto will be certain.”

The EU is in the process of hammering out its new seven-year budget. Di Maio last week threatened to withhold Italy’s EU contributions if the bloc did not agree to take in rescued migrants that the government had blocked on a ship in the port of Catania, in Sicily.