The government should not give in to the bullying attitude of populist Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, Alternattiva chairman Arnold Cassola said this morning.

Addressing a news conference in Valletta, he said: “The Interior Minister Roberto Maroni comes from the populist right-wing Lega Nord party, that is well know for its xenophobic and racist attitudes even vis a vis Italians not coming from the north of Italy.

“Italy, like the rest of EU countries, is in the midst of an election campaign and Maroni is playing the usual tough guy in order to gain consensus among the Lega voters in the North of Italy.

“Maroni knows pretty well that the rule of international law binds ship captains to take any migrants to the nearest safe haven, which in this case is Lampedusa. No discussion about this."

Prof. Cassola said that Malta’s search and rescue area at sea was disproportionate to its means and resources. Therefore, unless provided with ships, funds, human and all other adequate resources by the European Union to be able to carry out the work of saving lives effectively at sea, Malta would find it difficult to honour its commitments unless it gave up a substantial part of its search and rescue area at sea.

Yesterday, Mr Maroni accused Malta of not taking its responsibilities on migration and dumping migrants on Italy.

He said that relations between Malta and Italy had taken a bad turn recently over this issue and he asked EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot to intervene and convince Malta to assume its responsibilities.

But Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said that Italy’s objections were unacceptable.

While he understood that Italy has its immigration problems to face, the Maltese government could not accept immigrants found closer to Italian ports.