歐洲難民危機有了一張全新面孔，那就是31歲的德國船長卡羅拉·拉科特。由于違反意大利的零容忍“閉港”政策，拉科特于6月底被捕。

在圍觀者潮水般的噓聲中，梳著臟辮的海洋觀察3號（Sea Watch 3）救援船船長拉科特在地中海小島蘭佩杜薩島港口被全副武裝的意大利警察逮捕。拉科特將被罰款5萬歐元，而且有可能入獄，原因是她將40名身體虛弱的難民帶上了岸，這些難民在6月的大多數時間里一直在海上飄蕩。

這位年輕德國船長指揮的船只懸掛著荷蘭國旗。對意大利和歐盟來說，本次逮捕行動恰恰出現在一個最不愉快的時刻。就在逮捕拉科特之前的幾個小時里，歐盟委員會一直在設法安排一項協議，以免發生外交糾紛，具體內容是在五個歐洲國家之間分配移民。但此項示好舉措未能阻止蘭佩杜薩島港口的那一幕最終上演。

在日本的G20峰會上，意大利總理朱塞佩·孔特在拉科特被捕后的幾小時里努力解決這一問題，但他的表態幾乎未能緩解歐洲的地緣政治緊張局勢。幾個小時后，德國對本國公民被捕表示憤慨。德國外長?？啤ゑR斯專門批評了意大利的冷酷做法。他在推特上寫道：“拯救生命是人道主義責任。意大利司法部門應該迅速說明指控理由?！?/p>

與此同時，在意大利和德國，為德國難民救援組織海洋觀察打這場官司而發起的幾項眾籌活動近幾天獲得了100多萬歐元捐款，這對Facebook達人、兼任意大利副總理的馬泰奧·薩爾維尼來說略有些公關災難的意味。

幾周來，海洋觀察組織的故事每天都會出現在社交媒體和新聞上，甚至傳到了梵提岡——教皇方濟各也站出來為該組織說話。上述最新事件有可能讓歐盟進一步分裂為左右兩派，讓顯然支持拉科特的民間社會團體和薩爾維尼等通過打擊前往意大利的大量移民而上臺的強硬派對立起來。

薩爾維尼對此事的結果可能也不是完全滿意。拉科特于6月底在蘭佩杜薩島遭逮捕時，歐盟各國領導人正在布魯塞爾緊張地討價還價，目的是爭奪歐盟主要領導職位，包括歐洲央行行長馬里奧·德拉吉的繼任者。除歐洲央行行長外，歐盟委員會主席、歐洲議會議長以及歐盟理事會主席人選均有待確定。以往，成員國會在此類磋商中擱置爭議，交換利益并結成聯盟，以便讓他們最青睞的人得到任命。

而意大利可能比以往任何時候都需要布魯塞爾的朋友。由于一直未能遵守歐盟預算政策，歐盟可能對意大利罰款35億歐元并要求其采取更嚴格的開支措施。薩爾維尼則反復敦促歐盟方面做出讓步，因為他希望為意大利企業和個人減稅。去年大部分時間里，意大利預算問題都一直處于僵持狀態，而且有時會引起全球股市波動并讓所謂的意大利-德國債券“風險利差”大幅上升。

本周一上午，該利差基本未變，但主要原因是市場相信另一位意大利人——歐洲央行行長德拉吉將在余下的幾個月任期內降低利率并啟動新一輪債券購買行動。這兩項措施有可能成為薩爾維尼及其執政聯盟伙伴的救命稻草。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

Europe’s migrant crisis has a fresh new face: a 31-year-old German ship captain who was arrested at the end of June for defying Italy’s zero-tolerance “closed ports” policy.

With a cascade of boos pouring down from onlookers, the dreadlocked Carola Rakete, captain of the aid boat Sea Watch 3, was taken into custody by armed Italian officers at a port on the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. Rakete faces a fine of 50,000 euros and possible jail time for bringing 40 ailing migrants, stranded at sea for much of June, to shore.

The timing of Italy’s arrest of the young German, captaining a Dutch-flagged ship, couldn’t have

come at a more fraught moment for Italy and the European Union. In the hours before her arrest, the European Commission had tried to broker a deal to avoid a diplomatic row, proposing that the migrants be distributed between five European countries. That olive branch failed to diffuse the showdown at the port, however.

At the G20 Summit in Japan, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte scrambled to address the matter in the hours after her arrest, but his comments did little to lower the geopolitical tensions back home. Hours later, Germany expressed its indignation with the arrest of one of its own. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was particularly critical of Italy’s heavy-handed approach. "It's a humanitarian duty to save lives," he wrote on Twitter. "It is on the Italian judiciary to swiftly clarify the accusations."

Meanwhile, separate crowdfunding appeals to finance Sea Watch’s legal defense launched in Italy and Germany in recent days raised more than 1 million euros, a bit of a public relations black-eye for Italy’s anti-immigration government led by the Facebook-savvy vice premier Matteo Salvini.

For weeks, the Sea Watch saga has played out daily on social media, in the press and even in the halls of the Vatican where Pope Francis weighed in to defend the aid group. The latest episode risks further dividing the bloc down a Left-Right fault line, pitting civil society groups, clearly in the corner of Rakete, against hardliners such as Salvini who’s staked his rise to power on cracking down on mass migration reaching Italian shores.

Salvini also couldn’t have been all that pleased with the outcome. The ordeal in Lampedusa occurred as European leaders met in Brussels at the end of June in an intense fit of horse-trading to secure the bloc’s top positions, including a successor to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. That, and the presidencies of the European Commission, Parliament, Council are all up for grabs. Traditionally, member states put aside their differences during these negotiations, trading favors and striking alliances to get their preferred candidate the plumb assignments.

And Italy, more than ever, could use some friends in Brussels. The country has run afoul of European Union budget rules, and is facing a possible 3.5 billion euro fine plus demands to introduce more austere spending measures. Salvini, meanwhile, has repeatedly urged Brussels to back off as he hopes to deliver tax cuts to Italian businesses and taxpayers. This impasse over Italy’s budget has raged for much of the past year, at times roiling global stock markets and sending the so-called “risk spread” between Italian and German bonds soaring.

On Monday morning, the spread was little moved, but that’s mainly because the markets believe another Italian – ECB president Draghi – is poised to cut rates and re-introduce a new tranche of bond-buying in his remaining months, two moves that would serve as a lifeline to Salvini and his governing coalition partners in Rome.