Six months. That’s how long it’s scheduled to last the state of migratory emergency decreed this Tuesday by the Italian Government in an almost unprecedented decision. This is an activation that serves Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of the transalpine country, to put one of her flagship themes of the campaign that promoted her to the Chigi Palace on the front page. She has now seen a window of opportunity and takes a step that Silvio Berlusconi had only dared to drink before in 2011 (although with a much kinder ‘excuse’ such as the humanitarian one). The current Executive, on the other hand, sends a message to Brussels: if the immigration issue is not addressed from the common, they will make drastic decisions.
In just one weekend 2,000 people arrived on the Italian coast -3,000 if those on Monday are added- and that made the Council of Ministers press the button. It thus provoked a reaction from the European Commission, which has recognized that the situation is “challenging” and that it closely follows “the measures taken by the Italian authorities.” Of course, the Government of Meloni has not yet fully specified the implications of the measure. For now, it will provide state structures with five million euros from the National Emergency Fund with the aim, among others, of facilitating the reception of migrants, as well as reinforcing the repatriation and expulsion tools. How should this decision be analyzed?
Jaime Bordelpolitical scientist and author of Salvini and Meloni. How the radical right conquered Italian politics, explain to 20minutos that “it is certainly a message addressed to Brussels”. It is a warning. “Meloni He has been asking the EU for more help for months and to take responsibility for the situation of the landings of migrants in Italy, and this is a way of showing that it is serious, that the emergency is not exaggerated and that Italy is in an exceptional situation” for which it is taking exceptional measures. “We understand that it is caused by the particularly challenging immigration situation facing Italy. We need to see the details and the measures”, they stressed from the Commission, which called for a “joint” management of migration, but rejected the criticism coming from Rome. That decision, in any case, depends on the Member States… and there is no deal in sight.
“Obviously, a strong hand in immigration matters was one of the great promises of the Government, which also, as is being more cautious and less belligerent than the Executive of Conte and Salvini in matters such as the economy and the negotiation of budgets“, continues the political scientist, who for this reason sees in a certain logical way that the Meloni cabinet “insert these more radical pills” into its decisions. In addition, adds Bordel, “it is a space in conflict within the partners themselves, since the immigration issue It was always Salvini’s star theme while the family has been Meloni’s”.
In the long run, can this be an issue that works for other EU countries, such as Spain, which also has to directly manage migration? The analyst thinks so. “Italy in this and other aspects seeks to be a beacon for the parties of the radical right”, he concludes. But at the same time he warns that the declaration of exceptional states that restrict rights such as a state of emergency “sets a somewhat dangerous precedent for European democracies.” In the case of Meloni, it is also striking that at the time he was perhaps the most critical voice regarding how long the previous government extended this exceptional measure during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among the procedures enabled by this state of emergency is a increase in facilities set up for the repatriation of migrants that they do not have the right to remain in Italy, according to the media with access to a text that has not yet been disclosed by the Government. The opening of new CPRs (Centro di Permanenza per il Rimpatrio, in Italian) will facilitate identification and deportation activities for the authorities.
For the professor of International Relations of the CEU San Pablo University Luis Rodrigo de Castro The key is that we can be facing “a wake-up call” to the EU precisely because it “continues to there is a feeling that the south is the first line in immigration matters”, as it happens with Italy, Spain and Greece, and the countries of the north of the Union ignore the matter more. But at the same time the professor asks to also understand the decision in an internal key: “Meloni is not Salvini, and he does not make such radical decisions, as he is seeing.” That is why this step, in the end, is taken after months of warnings.
The Member States continue to have the negotiation of a common migration and asylum policy pending. Rodrigo de Castro understands that “That is one of the parts” and sees “a joint approach” positive in this sensebut asks “not to forget the part of the development cooperation policies in the countries of origin” of the migrants to avoid complicated situations and decision-making like the one that has occurred in Italy.
Since the beginning of 2023, arrivals in Italy have amounted to 31,000 migrants, almost four times as many than the nearly 8,000 who did so in the same period of 2022, according to the official count. In the last three days alone, more than 3,000 migrants have arrived in Italy after being treated by the coast guard, which has rescued dozens of boats in distress in the Central Mediterranean this weekend. The good weather has encouraged a greater number of boats, most of them from Tunisia, to embark on the route that connects North Africa with the coasts of Sicily and Lampedusa, whose reception centers are overflowing. Meloni wants to put a stop to it, even if it costs him shocks inside and outside of Italy.