Apparently Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is not one to let tumbleweeds grow under his feet after a successful first offensive. Oh, gads, NO. Not content to strike at the heart of Angela Merkel’s open immigration policies last week with his refusal to let a “migrant” ship dock – as usual – in an Italian port, on Monday?

Not only did they deny harbor to another “rescue” ship (and a poor Maersk container ship that had been diverted to rescue 100+ migrants at sea.), he took his case to the heart of the problem: as if conjured by an enchanted haboob, he appeared in Tripoli, Libya today.

With European leaders at each other’s throats over the large number of migrants arriving from North Africa, Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini paid a surprise visit to Tripoli.

…There, he called for the establishment of processing centres in various unnamed African countries to deal with potential migrants in a move “to help Libya as well as Italy block migration”.

Libya is a key departure point for thousands of migrants hoping to reach Europe, although hundreds drown each year attempting the crossing.

Salvini’s unexpected trip came a day after emergency talks between 16 European Union leaders in a bid to break a longstanding deadlock over who should take in the migrants, the bulk of whom have been landing in Italy and Greece.

“FAR RIGHT.” Drives me crazy. Every single news agency uses that…well…basically a pejorative to describe an elected official who is proactively trying to keep his country from being inundated and ultimately consumed by foreign invaders.  Anyway, I digress.

It has to be hugely uncomfortable to the powers in Brussels and that old maid balancing on her last egg in Berlin to have this loose cannon upsetting all their carefully organized plans. Worse, his proposal of tackling the illegal immigration at its source met with approbation from the Libyan leaders. 

Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeq told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Monday that Tripoli sees cooperation with Italy on the trafficking issue as “crucial”.

He said: “Traffickers who bring migrants to Italy are dangerous criminal groups for us, who prevent Libya from taking a step toward a difficult normalization.

“All of Europe must think of structural measures to take in African countries to stop migrants.”

After his meeting, Mr Salvini thanked the Libyan coastguard for the “excellent work” in rescuing and intercepting migrants and said the two countries were in “full agreement” over immigration.

The Italian minister proposed setting up migrant reception centres at Libya’s southern borders to help stanch a flow of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy.

Especially galling to the EU ruling class was that fact that this extemporaneous diplomatic gambit occurred not 24 hours after the 16 EU leaders had banged heads in an emergency summit – yet again – titled “WILL NO ONE RID US OF THESE TROUBLESOME MIGRANTS”…or something like that. With, of course, no decision.

With European leaders at each other’s throats over the large number of migrants arriving from North Africa, Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini paid a surprise visit to Tripoli.

…Salvini’s unexpected trip came a day after emergency talks between 16 European Union leaders in a bid to break a longstanding deadlock over who should take in the migrants, the bulk of whom have been landing in Italy and Greece.

Missione #Libia, si parte! pic.twitter.com/HTnLccSZ6A

— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) June 25, 2018

A caveat: the Libyans, while supportive, were also “We’ll help you STOP them, but we don’t want these guys, either.”

Mr Salvini said such centres would ease pressure on both Libya and Italy.

However, Mr Maiteeq said that while it was ready to tackle migration, “we completely reject any migrant camps in Libya.

“This is not allowed under Libyan law and regulations.”

So, I mean, why should the Italians? Especially since they are footing a whale of a bill they CAN’T AFFORD. Quite frankly, they also up to their eyeballs with lectures from other European countries who aren’t shouldering near the load they are. Take…France, for instance. It was a French “rescue” ship last week that picked up those 600+ migrants. France has ports on the Mediterranean, so…did any of those “migrants” even come close to landing in France?

Non.

But that didn’t stop that natty little French president from running his grande bouche about the Italians. Sacre bleu!

THESE Italians hit back:

Last week, France’s youthful and dapper president Emmanuel Macron swaggered into a battle of wits with the inexperienced and much-mocked lugnuts who run Italy’s new populist government. Macron was humiliated. That very same Italian populist government, meanwhile, threw down a gauntlet before half a dozen of its European neighbors and won.

While everyone was paying attention to refugees from Syria tramping into Europe across Turkey and Greece, sub-Saharan Africans started crossing the Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia into Italy on fast motorboats at the rate of 150,000 a year. There are more than 600,000 of them now in Italy’s cities and villages, and they are costing the Italian government, which is already dead broke, $5 or $6 billion a year in lodging and welfare. Negotiations are ongoing in Luxembourg over how other countries in the 28-member European Union might share the costs with Italy, but since this would likely mean sharing the actual refugees, the talks never go anywhere. Under the E.U.’s “Dublin accords,” the first country immigrants come in contact with is responsible for them. This is to keep migrants from flocking to the northern European countries that have the most generous welfare states.

And

Mr Salvini described Mr Macron as arrogant and told him to “stop the insults” after the French leader had demanded that countries be fined for refusing to take migrants.

He skulked back to his teacher…um, WIFE. Deflated like a soggy soufflé.

At the time of final editing, the Italians were 4, French 0, Maersk crew 1 (having been allowed to offport their rescuees in Sicily), German rescue boat 0 (234+ and still floating), and Angela Merkel’s clock ticking off her two weeks to keep her government. I’ll give her a…ZERO.

Besides the Italians sticking to their guns, I’m pretty tickled they let the Maersk guys dump their load. They got boned, collateral damage-wise.

The French might want to take a gander at the page of the same French book the Italians seem to be reading. It’s good advice.

De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace!