Italy will address a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels amid an escalating row with France sparked by Rome's refusal to give a safe port to 234 migrants stranded at sea for nearly three weeks off Italy.
Italy's rightist government rejects accusations by Paris that it was "irresponsible and inhumane" not to have come to the aid of the NGO vessel 'Ocean Viking', which docked in the French port of Toulon on Friday.
To underlined its disapproval of the Italian government's conduct over the case of the 'Ocean Viking' which had 57 children and four critically ill passengers on board, the French government has frozen a deal to take 3,500 refugees from Italy and is reinforcing patrols at the border.
Italy's premier Giorgia Meloni told reporters she was "struck by the aggressive reaction from the French government, which from my point of view is incomprehensible and unjustified”.
The government argues that Italy and other gateway countries cannot continue to disproportionately shoulder the burden of a growing migrant influx, and that fairness and solidarity mean that asylum-seekers must be relocated to other EU countries in far greater numbers.
Thirteen European states have pledged to take in some 8,000 of Italy's 90,000 arrivals this year - less than a tenth of the total - but so far just 117 migrants have been transferred to other European countries and only 38 to France, according to the interior ministry.
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