Italy's northeastern province of Friuli Venezia Giulia has said that the Italian government will be drawing up urgent measures to counter the arrival of migrants via the Balkan route, while police say the situation is problematic in Trieste.
"The requests we made to the interior ministry on the issue of the Balkan route were with a positive response. The interior ministry has ensured us that urgent, immediate actions will be taken to counter clandestine migration along this route," regional councillor for immigration policies Pierpaolo Roberti said.
Roberti had in recent days called for Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese to address an uptick in entrances to Italy from Eastern Europe through the border between Friuli Venezia Giulia and Slovenia.
"We are looking at the data to understand whether the actions brought in will be productive,'' he said.
Police union warn of problematic situation in Trieste
"With the beginning of the spring, irregular migrant arrivals from the Balkan route in Trieste are rising: 270 people in the past 8 days and 1,000 since the beginning of the year," secretary of the COISP police union Domenico Pianese said.
He underscored that, ''if urgent and effective countermeasures are not adopted, the migration season in Trieste will be tiring and risky in terms of men and vehicles.''
The COVID-19 pandemia, Pianese continued, ''complicates their management since police personnel from the entire province is called upon for constant contact with people from other nations for which two weeks of quarantine should be observed.''
"We cannot hold up under these conditions for long," COISP said. "The significant reduction in border police personnel obliges us to take police away'' from other tasks.
He added that "there are no appropriate facilities to put the migrants in nor interpreters available, and the difficulty to find FFP2/FFP3 masks and protective goggles remains."
MPs talking to interior ministry
A statement issued by MPs from the Democratic Party (PD) Tatjana Rojc and Debora Serracchiani noted that there was ''constant'' dialogue with the interior ministry, especially on the Balkan route and the needs of the province.
They added that they believed collaboration with Slovenia on Schengen border surveillance would be stepped up on the basis of these needs. (Photo shows