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Bloomberg
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the next 12 months will determine whether the EU can hold together as the bloc’s leaders prepare for emergency talks on immigration this weekend.
Since taking office as part of a populist coalition last month, Salvini has been stirring up tensions over migration policy, refusing rescue ships access to Italian ports, sparring with French President Emmanuel Macron and demanding other EU countries take more of the asylum seekers landing in Italy from Africa. That’s set Italy on course for a clash with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting in Brussels on Sunday.
In Berlin, Merkel is under pressure from her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, who is threatening to defy the chancellor unless she secures a deal that allows Germany to send migrants back to the countries where they first arrived in the EU — and that means the Mediterranean frontier states Italy, Spain and Greece.
As she fights for her political survival, Merkel is coming under fire from an array of so-called allies. US President Donald Trump repeated his threat to slap a 20 percent tariff on European car imports while 11 northern EU countries criticised her agreement with Macron to set up a euro-region budget to add stability to EU.