Spotlight: Italy calls for European help with refugee crisis, experts say impacts overblown

Italy's Coast Guard and Navy rescued thousands of new migrants, the latest in a growing tide of desperate people fleeing war, poverty, and political unrest that has sparked renewed calls in Italy for a pan-European strategy to confront the growing problem.

According to figures from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, more than 17,000 people have made the treacherous crossings to Italy so far this year, around 50 percent more than this point during last year's record influx. The week-to-week numbers are expected to increase further over the coming months, as warmer weather and calmer seas will make the nearly 300-kilometer journey from the Libyan coast easier.

The tide of migrants may be turning back toward Italy as well. Last year, Greece surpassed Italy as the most important European point of entry for refugees, but early indications are that recent cooperation between Turkish and Greek officials may have started to curb the number of people flowing through that pipeline.

All these developments have helped spark new calls from Italy for a more comprehensive European strategy to confront the refugee problem. In recent years, Italy has called for closer European integration in multiple areas, including security policy, tax rules, and increased flexibility in national budgets. Last year, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called the refugee crisis a European problem that required all the European states to share in the expense. This time around, his view has been more tempered: calling for national refugee-related spending to be excluded from budget-related caps.

Experts said the Italian prime minister is likely to get his way.

"There is no clear European strategy on how to handle this refugee problem," Oliviero Fiorini, a political affairs expert with ABS Securities, told Xinhua. "I think if the European Union can help address the issue by saying OK to the kind of budget flexibility Italy has already called for and many countries support, then it'll be an easy decision to make."

That would be good news for the Italian budget, but not necessarily a public relations victory for the Italian government. Pollsters say that public support for the refugees in Italy is slowly eroding, and support for anti-immigration politicians is slowly increasing. Some Italian media has pointed to an increase in petty crime like pickpockets and the robbery of items left in cars as a symptom of the refugee influx.

Experts said it was difficult to know if that is the case -- the increase in crime could also be a symptom of a weak economy -- but they said the refugee crisis is probably not a long-term problem for Italy.

Raffaele Marchetti, an international relations professor with Rome's LUISS University, told Xinhua the problem is largely related to perception.

"There is a great deal of finger pointing, but the truth is the problem is a relatively small one," Marchetti said. "Most of these migrants are just passing through Italy and will settle elsewhere."

Maurizio Ambrosini, a sociologist with the University of Milan and a frequent commentator on the refugee crisis, agreed.

"Let's keep this in perspective: only around 10 percent of refugees worldwide come to Europe," Ambrosini said in an interview. "Of those who do come to Europe only around 2 or 3 out of 1,000 settle in Italy -- below the European Union average. Compare that to around 10 out of 1,000 in Sweden, or 23 out of 1,000 in Malta. Italy is a point of transit for most of them."

Ambrosini drew a parallel to the early 1990s, when the former Yugoslavia erupted into war.

"There was a similar influx of refugees to Italy, this time from the Balkans, and if you look at the media at that time many of the same arguments were being made," he went on. "Now, more than 20 years later, nobody remembers." Endit