2023-07-23 00:02:00
A step forward towards the ‘Mattei plan’, the far-reaching objective of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to deal with migratory (but also energy) problems. Making it clear to the EU that Rome is ready to assume responsibility for guiding and managing relations with the countries of North Africa, provided it finds support in Brussels. The ‘international conference on development and migration’ today in Rome opens with important expectations from the Italian government, with the meeting at the Farnesina, labeled as “an unprecedented foreign policy initiative in recent times, in which Italy exercises its leading role in the enlarged Mediterranean to address emergencies that Italy cannot and does not want to face alone”.
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“It’s another great Italian success” said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, interviewed by Tg1 at 8pm yesterday. “We will have over 20 Mediterranean, Arab, European, African countries, 16 heads of state and government, 10 international organizations. All together to address the issue of migration, understand how to help the countries from which migrants leave, understand how to stop trafficking in human beings and traffickers. And what we are proposing with these countries that share the Mediterranean is a cooperative model, a convergent interest”. “We need to change the approach from those who told us that borders should not be defended and that migration was a right that could not be limited. We have changed this approach, otherwise with the current situation, pressure on our coasts becomes impossible, for this we need to find structural solutions. I want to stop the phenomenon of illegal migration definitively, to do this we need international cooperation”, he concludes.
The Italian government – which will see Meloni and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani at the table – has invited to the capital “the leaders of almost all the states of the southern shore of the enlarged Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Gulf, as well as the EU first port states and some partners from the Sahel and the Horn of Africa” but also “the top management of European institutions and international financial institutions”, starting with the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. At the table, therefore, “nations of origin, of transit, of first arrival in Europe” of migrants “and partners such as the States of the Gulf Cooperation Council”. Among the expected names already arrived or arriving in Rome there are about twenty heads of state and government. From Brussels, in addition to von der Leyen, there will be the President of the European Council Charles Michel.
For the European countries bordering the Mediterranean, the president of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides, the Greek premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the Maltese premier Robert Abela, absent Spain which today votes for the policies. Meloni will see Tunisian president Kais Saied after a week, with whom the EU signed a memorandum ‘sponsored’ by Rome last Sunday. From Egypt, President Al Sisi sends Mostafa Madbouly, his prime minister, to Italy, while Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali arrives from Ethiopia, the president of the Libyan presidential council, Mohamed el Menfi, and Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan are also in Rome. With them also the heads of international financial institutions, from all over the world.
An enlarged table (“but the goal is to expand it further”) to “launch a long-term project – as diplomatic sources still underline today – starting a multi-year international path with concrete and verifiable commitments by the participating States precisely on the issues of development and migration”. Because “there is the awareness that only with cohesive, determined action capable of looking ahead to address the root causes of irregular flows will it be possible to defeat the criminal activity of human traffickers, supporting and promoting legal migration in a regulated context”, is the Italian reasoning. All gathered until the evening, with the work to be concluded by the premier, arriving at a joint final declaration that is still being filed between the various countries. Then dinner, scheduled at Villa Madama.
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