Leaders of the Patriots for Europe (PfE) EU Parliamentary group convened for an ad hoc press conference on the sidelines of the Strasbourg plenary on Tuesday, September 17th, to address the recent developments in Matteo Salvini’s legal case in Italy after Sicilian prosecutors asked for a six-year prison term for the deputy prime minister for preventing an NGO ship from disembarking illegal migrants in 2019.
The group strongly and unilaterally condemned what they regarded as a politically motivated weaponization of the law and the persecution of a democratically elected official for fulfilling his duty toward his nation and all of Europe.
“The world has turned upside down. Those who defend the European borders are harassed and threatened,” MEP Kinga Gál, the First VP of the group said, drawing parallels with Hungary’s ongoing migration row after the country was slapped with an unprecedented fine just for requiring asylum seekers to register their claims before entering the country.
“The Patriots’ position is clear: the EU external borders have to be protected and NGO ships have to be stopped from delivering illegal migrants on our shores,” she underlined, adding that Brussels should help and support those fulfilling their legal obligations to protect the Schengen area instead of threatening and harassing them.
The group’s parties will continue with their “unshakable” support for Salvini, Spanish VOX leader Jorge Buxadé declared. “That’s the only admissible position in a democracy.”
Important context
MEP Paolo Borchia, a member of Salvini’s Lega party, thanked the press in the room for being interested in the truth instead of just parroting the mainstream media’s lies, and provided further details of the case to explain what really happened five years ago.
He said that the NGO ship took aboard its passengers directly from a migrant smuggler boat just off the African coasts, as confirmed by an Italian navy crew who found the boat in no immediate danger or need of a rescue. Then, despite receiving entry permissions from both Spain and Malta, it immediately began to head for the Italian island of Lampedusa even as the migrants themselves protested.
“It’s clear that the well-being of the migrants was secondary, and the first objective was to destabilize Italy” after Salvini promised not to let illegal migrants land, Borchia said.
He added that it was a lie that all migrants were left stranded on the ship for weeks without any assistance, as the authorities provided first aid and food immediately, and took nearly half of the migrants ashore. Only about 80 remained on board.
The same blocking order has been issued thirteen times since then, yet nobody else has been charged ever since, which Borchia believes is the ultimate evidence of a political witch hunt by the courts.
Politics on the stand
The Patriots group not only supports Salvini because he’s their ally, but also for legal reasons, they pointed out—to challenge this insidious lawfare that might otherwise create a dangerous precedent.
This case is deliberately mixing up political decisions made by a minister with a democratic mandate to do so with personal charges prosecuted in a civilian court, Jean-Paul Garraud of the French National Rally pointed out. “It’s political responsibility, not personal responsibility; it’s not for the courts to judge but for the people, and only the people,” he stated, adding that we cannot let ourselves be ruled by an unelected “government of judges.”
Furthermore, Salvini faces potential jail time for simply doing what any responsible politician should do: defending the borders of their nations, Buxade highlighted. “If there are any laws that prevent a politician from defending his borders, that law should be changed,” he said.
The issue also goes beyond frontline countries, added Tom Vandendriessche of the Flemish Vlaams Belang party. “Italian borders are Flemish borders because we share the same Schengen area,” he said. “Matteo Salvini is on trial for defending his citizens and my citizens.”
Vandendriessche continued by citing official Frontex data, saying that over 90% of illegal migrants who reach Europe by sea pay enormous sums to human smugglers, who—with the complicity of EU-subsidized NGOs—managed to build a billion-euro industry around legal loopholes. “It’s the NGOs that should be on trial, not Salvini,” he added.
On top of that, the vast majority of the migrants do not qualify for asylum, but turning them back is hindered by EU regulations. Vandendriessche noted that the EU’s flagship migration policy package, the Migration and Asylum Pact, contains no tools for external border control, nor effective return policies. Europe, therefore, needs an entirely new approach, based on the ‘Australian model’: a legal framework for pushbacks and a lifetime ban on moving to Europe for those who attempt to enter illegally.
Harald Vilimsky of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) likened Salvini’s case to Donald Trump’s in New York, saying that such lawfare should have no place in democracies. “As Patriots, I think we should launch a public campaign together, similar to Charlie Hebdo’s “Je suis Charlie,” he said, “but this time it should be, “Io Sono Matteo Salvini.”
