ROME (Dispatches) - Italy doubled down Friday on its new tough stance against migrants, calling for a German NGO's rescue boat to be impounded and its crew arrested as the EU prepares for a tense weekend mini-summit on the issue dividing the bloc.
Just three weeks in power, Italy's new populist government is digging its heels in on campaign promises to stop the influx of migrants, threatening to seize rescue ships or barring them from its ports.
This time, it has set its sights on the German NGO, Mission Lifeline.
A source close to the Maltese government said that Valetta had not yet received any official request from Rome, nor had Lifeline itself sought any permission to land.
Salvini has repeatedly accused NGOs of being complicit with human smugglers operating in Libya.
Meanwhile, leaders of the four central European Visegrad states announced Thursday they would not attend an informal meeting organized by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss migration policy.
Speaking after a meeting of the leaders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in Budapest, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described Sunday's meeting as "unacceptable", adding: "We are not going to attend, they want to re-heat a proposal that we've already rejected."
His Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban said that the meeting was "against the normal customs of the EU" and that the appropriate forum was the EU leaders' summit scheduled for next week.
The four were joined at the summit by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who has added his voice to calls for a tougher migration policy.