By Eric J. Lyman
ROME, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Leaders from an increasingly divided European Union this week came together in Austria to discuss policies to make it more difficult for one group of people, would-be asylum seekers, to gain entry to the 28-nation bloc, while negotiating the path for another, the United Kingdom, to leave.
The first of those issues -- migration -- was a priority for the Italian government at the informal Salzburg EU summit. In recent years, Italy has been the main European landing point for refugees from Africa and the Middle East.
The nearly-four-month-old government, led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, has taken a hardline stance against that role. It has blocked most rescue ships from landing in Italian ports and has repeatedly called on other European states to do more to help curb the number of arrivals and to process, settle, and pay for those who do land in Europe.
In Salzburg, Italy saw some movement. Leaders agreed to create a 10,000-person border force by 2020, a dramatic expansion.
The plan is to make it more difficult for potential asylum seekers to land in Europe -- something Italy has been pushing for dating back to even before the installation of the Conte government.
"This priority for Italy dates back to Gentiloni and Renzi," Antonello Folco Biagini, a professor of European history at Rome's La Sapienza University, told Xinhua, referring to Paolo Gentiloni and Matteo Renzi, Italy's previous two prime ministers. "The difference is that the current government was much more vocal in pushing for it."
European Union Council president Donald Tusk said there was now a consensus among countries for a "sharp determination" among leaders in Salzburg to strengthen border security.
"The problem of immigration -- or of a European 'invasion' from poor countries, as some anti-migrant groups have begun calling it -- was the most important issue on the table for Italy," Folco Biagini said. "Many in Italy have felt abandoned by Europe, and the declarations in Austria may have helped confront that view."
Still, Britain's exit plan from the European Union was the most high-profile issue at the summit.
European leaders were unwilling to compromise in talks with UK Prime Minister Theresa May, sparking a Friday address from May in London accusing the European Union of being "disrespectful" and risking a complete breakdown in the negotiations over Brexit.
May went to Salzburg with a detailed outline for how the Brexit divorce should work, and said European leaders has rejected it "without any detail in their explanation or any counter-proposals".
Italy has mostly stood with other European countries throughout two years of acrimonious Brexit negotiations.
According to Antonio Villafranca, research coordinator and head of the European Program at ISPI, the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, Italy's economic ties with the United Kingdom are small enough that however Brexit plays out it will "probably not have a significant direct impact" on Italy's fortunes.
Still, Villafranca said, any instability on uncertainty within the European Union could have an impact on yields for government bonds, which are already high in Italy.
Higher yields increase the government's cost for borrowing money. That is already a sensitive area for Italy, which has the second highest debt-to-gross domestic product ratio in the European Union.
Furthermore, Villafranca said that the longer Brexit and other issues drag on unresolved, the harder it will be for key Italian priorities -- not just immigration, but calls for more flexibility in rules limiting government debt, and investments in infrastructure -- to gain traction.
"Italy would probably like to have its concerns be a higher priority for Europe," Villafranca said in an interview. "Without Brexit that would be more likely."
