Darren Hunt,
An Italian politician has ripped into the European Union’s migration deal after negotiations ran into the early hours of Friday morning at the European Council summit where the accord was top of the agenda.
The meeting in Brussels ran until the early hours of the morning as leaders tried to find a solution to the migrant crisis.
Italy has called for changes to the EU’s migrant policy and EU leaders eventually reached an agreement after chaotic talks on migration.
Speaking to reporters at around 4am, Angela Merkel admitted that the bloc still had “a lot of work to do to bridge the different views”.
Speaking to Sky News, the Italian MEP and member of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left, Barbara Spinelli said: “The Italian Government did a good thing vetoing the first draft of the agreement.
Barbara Spinelli said the agreement in Brussels was far from a solution for Italy “In the same sense, it was a good choice, by the Government. But the results are far from offering viable and right based solutions, even for Italy.
“For Italy, the essential point from my point of view is a new regulation of Dublin.
“On the reform of Dublin, there has been no agreement. And what is particularly disturbing from my point of view is that the European Parliament, which is the only elected body of the European Union has presented proposals that are very positive also for Italy, for the whole union.
“And these proposals and this Parliament has been completely ignored by the agreement of the member states in the European Council.”
Italy has been pushing to see EU countries share the responsibility of asylum-seekers on Italian soil.
Speaking of his pleasure at a deal on migration being reached, Italy’s new hardline Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said: “Italy is no longer alone after this EU summit.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said a hard-fought deal reached by EU leaders on migration showed “European cooperation” had prevailed over national interests.
“After nine hours of discussions, an agreement has been found. It is European cooperation that has won the day,” Macron said as he left talks that began on Thursday evening and lasted until dawn on Friday.
He added: “Europe will have to live with migratory pressures for a long time.
“We must succeed in standing up to this challenge whilst being true to our values.”
Theresa May hailed the results of the EU negotiations after “lengthy discussions”.
She said: “It is just after 5am, we have had very lengthy discussions, but lengthy discussions on the important subject of migration.
“And we have come to positive conclusions, a lot of them around what the United Kingdom has been encouraging for some time, which is taking more action upstream in countries of origin so that we can ensure that people aren’t having to make and aren’t making these very dangerous journeys, often travelling many miles, often at the hands of the people smugglers and making the dangerous trips across the Mediterranean where we still see some people dying.”
