Below is our translation of an interesting article appearing today in Il Giornale. Between the years 20-22 to the present, most of the illegal migrants arriving in Italy by sea have come courtesy of German NGO boats. This is hardly a surprise, given the 2019 episode involving the German vessel, Sea Watch 3, and the arrest of the ship's commander, Carola Rackete, but it has also been noted in the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allegemeine.
As they might say in Italian, "Grazie mille, Germania!"
German ships invade Italy: They have brought us 27,000 migrants
-Francesco Giubilei
August 24, 29026 at 12:00
More than half of migrants arriving in Italy from the Mediterranean with NGOs have been brought to land by German ships. Since the installation of the Meloni government in 2022 to today, 22,500 migrants out of a total of 40,281 have entered Italian territory through German NGOs and another 4,500 have arrived at our ports on board boats belonging to humanitarian organizations from other countries, but bearing the German flag.
As the Frankfurter Allegemeine, one of the leading dailies in Germany, writes, "This means that the percentage of migrants coming by sea on board German rescue boats and boats of third countries bearing the German flag amounts to almost two-thirds of all the arrivals by private humanitarian organizations since October 2022". This is a striking figure also because in the same period between October 2022 and July 2026, Italian and Spanish NGOs have transported a little less than 4,700 and a little more than 5,600 migrants to Italian territory, respectively; in short, directly or indirectly, almost 64% of the arrivals by private rescue boats could be traced to Germany.
The question brings to light particular relevance in the debate on so-called Dubliners and the possibility that Germany sends migrants back to Italy who crossed the borders of the European Union from our country. It that were the case, the government could leverage the activities of German NGOs also because, as the stopping and levying of fines on Sea Watch and the words of Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi demonstrate, the German NGOs often disregard "the obligations of law specified during operations at sea," according to which, "rescue activities at sea must be managed and coordinated by the competent nations and not by NGOs".
For years, German organizations like Sea Watch, Sea-Eye, SOS Humanity, and Mission Lifeline have carried out operations in the Mediterranean, bringing migrants to Italian ports and even receiving public financing from Germany. The Bundestag had allocated 2 million euros from 2023-2026 to support what was defined as "civil rescue at sea", and among the beneficiaries were SOS Humanity, Sea-Eye, and SOS Mediterranee. The government of Friedrich Merz interrupted the financing, but the German NGOs benefited from it for years however, disembarking migrants in Italy and thus placing the cost of receiving them to the Italian state. This has led to speculation that the Meloni government will ask for economic compensation from Germany to compensate for the costs sustained from the management of migrants arriving with German NGOs, an important negotiating lever given fears of reentry into Italy of migrants who entered Germany but initially arrived in EU territory through our country.
In reality, the debate between Italy and Germany is of interest to all the northern European countries and countries of first arrival in the Mediterranean, highlighting how the only real solution to the migration problem is to stop the departures and prevent the migrants from illegally entering Europe, a mechanism fueled by NGOs that every year bring tens of thousands of illegal migrants via the Mediterranean.
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