The populist leftwing opposition
5-Star Movement (M5S) on Monday lodged a complaint with the
Audit Court over the government's recent transfer of 16 migrants
to one of two new Italian-run processing centres in Albania
claiming that the operation hurt State coffers.
Italian media have said the 300,000 euros spent on the operation
could have funded three-week Caribbean cruises for each migrant.
The M5s caucus leader in the Constitutional Affairs Committee,
Alfonso Colucci, said that "we ask whether it is possible to
(claim) financial liability for the use of large public
resources for the performance of activities not legitimized on
the basis of the correct application of the law".
The scheme, which has been held up after a Rome court ruled the
Bangldeshi and Egyptian migrants didn't come from a safe
country, will cost an estimated 800 million euros over five
years and will process up to 3,000 migrants a year when up to
speed.
Some 157,000 migrants landed in Italy last year.
Right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni has said the project, agreed
with centre-left Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, will deter
migrants from
setting off for Italy and Europe.
Critics have said it unacceptably externalises the migrant issue
and sets up a new Guantanamo, as well as being excessively
expensive and addressing just a drop in the ocean of migrants
heading for Italy.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who binned the previous
Conservative government's scheme to take migrants to Rwanda, and
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp have been among the
foreign officials who have voiced interest in the project, which
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has held up
as a model for others to follow.
The 16 migrants were cut to 12 after two were found to be
vulnerable and another two minors.
photo: M5S leader and ex premier Giuseppe Conte
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