National
Spain criticises Italian policy towards immigration
By h.b.
May 17, 2008 - 12:07 PM

The Spanish Socialist Government has launched an attack on the policies of the recently re-elected Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, considering the newly introduced measures in Italy do not respect the human rights of foreigners. It comes as more than 400 immigrants, many of them gypsies, have been arrested in Italy over recent days.

Speaking to the press after the regular Friday cabinet meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, said
‘The Spanish Government rejects violence, racism and xenophobia, and therefore cannot condone what it happening in Italy’.

Her comments have had a great effect in Italy with the story leading all digital editions of the main newspapers there on Friday night.

De la Vega added that the Government was working to stop illegal immigration but had always respected the rights of those without papers. Spain was working for a legal and ordered immigration which allowed rights and obligations to be recognised’, she said.

The comments drew a quick reaction from the Italian Government, but a possible larger argument was sidestepped by a call from the Spanish Secretary of State for the EU, Diego López Garrido, who phoned the Italian Ambassador to Spain to explain that the Deputy Prime Minister was referring to the racist and xenophobic attacks which were being produced against the Romanians in gypsy camps in Naples.

Speaking at the Latin American, Carribean and EU Summit in Lima, the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, described the contacts between Italy and Spain as ‘not even an incident’.