Germany assures that it will continue to finance sea rescue associations despite criticism from Italy

Germany will continue to finance migrant rescue charities in the Mediterranean until 2026, the Foreign Ministry assured AFP on Saturday, rejecting the claims of Bild. On Friday, the popular daily highlighted that the two million euros allocated to sea rescue charities in the German budget for 2023 were no longer included in the draft budget for 2024, and that it was not a “oversight”.

“The press articles are incorrect”a “technical error” explaining the absence of “corresponding budgetary resources” in the draft budget, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday, requested by AFP. “It has been planned for several weeks to correct this problem as part of the rest of the budget process”specifies Berlin for whom “Funding for sea rescue is also planned for the years 2024 to 2026, with commitment authorizations from the Bundestag”.

Tension on migration

Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently wrote a letter to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressing her “stupefaction” concerning Germany’s funding of charities helping irregular migrants in his country. But following an interview with her Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani at the end of September, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock defended her country’s support for these rescue missions, which “save lives” in Mediterranean.

However, at Friday’s EU summit in Granada, southern Spain, Olaf Scholz struck a different tone, saying the funding had been approved by parliament and not the government. The issue of migration, one of the thorniest among the Twenty-Seven, was put on the agenda of this summit at the request of Giorgia Meloni following the recent influx of migrants on the small Italian island of Lampedusa , which recalled the urgency of a European response.