Spotlight: Italy under considerable strain amid influx of immigrants

As a surge in immigrant influx from North Africa puts the country under strain, Italy's central government is struggling to make local authorities accept an arrangement for equal distribution of the new arrivals across the territory.

On Thursday, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano held an emergency meeting here with mayors and regional governors to reach an agreement on new rules to accommodate the immigrants in a more balanced way, especially between the north and the south.

"We cannot expect an equal sharing from the European countries if we do not apply the same principle here in Italy," Alfano said.

"It would be most unfair to leave those (southern) regions already burdened with the 90 percent of arrivals to cope also with the weight to accommodate all the immigrants," Alfano said, suggesting municipalities might recruit them to work for free on a voluntary basis.

The ministry had already asked all prefectures in the country, excluding Sicily, to find some 9,000 more places for new immigrants earlier this week. Sicily is where most of the rescued migrants are usually brought in.

Alfano said that "municipalities and regions were cooperative and operative", although with some exceptions.

Not all local authorities seem ready to accept the idea, with some openly refusing to take in more immigrants, even though official figures confirmed the distribution of immigrants has been quite unbalanced so far.

According to data released in March, some 67,128 new arrivals were registered in Italian reception centers as of February, and 21 percent of them were housed in Sicily.

The Lazio region, which includes the city of Rome, has hosted 13 percent of the immigrants; and southern Puglia and northern industrial Lombardy have ranked the third, with an equal 9 percent sharing of the burden.

Other southern regions such as Campania and Calabria also have sheltered 7 percent of all new immigrants, while northern Veneto, Liguria, Friuli, and Aosta Valley have varied from 4 percent to less than 1 percent.

Despite these figures, northern regions are those appearing more frustrated, and local governors in Lombardy, Aosta Valley, and Veneto have vowed they would not take any more people in.

Lombardy's governor Roberto Maroni from the Northern League party did not attend the meeting with the ministry on Thursday, claiming the government was already managing the distribution of the immigrants in the country through the prefects, and without listening to local authorities.

"The meeting seems pointless to me. But I restate our position: Lombardy has done its part, and has no more place for anyone," he told Milan-based Corriere della Sera newspaper online.

Some 33,800 immigrants have arrived in Italy from the Mediterranean so far in 2015 and some 84,000 are currently being hosted in reception centers, the head of Interior Ministry's immigration department Mario Morcone told a parliamentary committee also on Thursday.

The number of arrivals between January and May 4 was 15 percent higher compared to the same period last year, and at this pace the immigrant influx is expected to surpass the record number of 170,100 registered in 2014, the official added.

In July 2014, the Italian government had already delivered a Reception National Plan, with each region due to receive a quota of immigrants on the base of the number of its inhabitants.

That plan soon became inadequate because of the ever-increasing number of people arriving especially from Libya, to escape economic hardship, wars, and humanitarian crisis.

Italy's forthcoming local elections in several cities and regions, due to take place on May 31, is not likely to help calm down the tensions between central government and local representatives.

Meanwhile, as the weather becomes warmer and sea conditions in the Mediterranean calmer, arrivals continue.

Some 9,000 people were rescued between May 1 and May 5 only, according to Italy's coast guard. Endi