Muscat to Salvini: 'Politics is not done by tweets'

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat criticised Italy’s deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on Sunday morning, saying “politics is not done by tweets but through persuasion”.
Dr Muscat made this remark in the wake of the ongoing stand-off involving a group of 137 migrants which are not being allowed to disembark at the port of Catania after being intercepted by the Italian navy vessel Diciotti.
Italy is insisting that it will not budge from its position until EU members states agree to share the migrants among themselves. Thirteen of the 150 people brought to Catania by the Italian navy were taken ashore on Saturday on doctors’ orders due to concerns about their health.
Interviewed on One Radio, the Prime Minister said that this incident was testament to the fact that the hard line approach on migration being advocated in certain quarters would lead to nowhere.

“The lesson from this standoff is that solutions do not depend on the size of the country or the number of tweets but through persuasion. Malta faced much more complicated cases, but managed to find solidarity from other member states as well as political solutions for cases which were not within its responsibility,” Dr Muscat...