Italy’s Meloni faces reality check as migrant flows rise relentlessly
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[July 13, 2023]
By Crispian Balmer and Angelo Amante
ROME (Reuters) - Just as King Canute failed to hold back the seas, so
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has floundered in her efforts to stop the
flow of migrants to Italy since she took office last October.
Despite pledges before last year's national election that she would cut
immigration, the number of people crossing the Mediterranean in a
flotilla of often decrepit old boats has doubled over the past nine
months.
In addition, bowing to pressure from the business lobby, which is
traditionally close to Meloni's right-wing bloc, the government last
week increased the number of migrants who can legally come to Italy for
work as the population rapidly ages.
"The government is clearly not delivering what it promised, but the
ruling parties are still seen by their electorate as much more
reassuring than the left on immigration, so they are not feeling
pressure in the opinion polls," said Mattia Diletti, a politics
professor at Rome's Sapienza University.
Immigration is one of the biggest political issues in Europe and has
played a major role in the rise of nationalist parties across the
continent over the past decade. The fact that Meloni, a figurehead of
the new right, has not carried through on her pledges underscores how
intractable the problem is.
It isn't for want of trying.
Since the start of 2023, Meloni has controversially limited the
operations of charity rescue ships and upped penalties on people
smugglers after a shipwreck off southern Italy claimed at least 94 lives
in February. She subsequently declared a state of emergency over the
non-stop arrival of mainly Africans.
All to no avail.
From Jan. 1 to July 12, 73,414 boat migrants reached Italy against
31,333 in the same period last year and more than for the whole of 2021,
according to Interior Ministry data.
"There are no miraculous solutions to resolve the migration phenomenon,"
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi acknowledged this month while
visiting the tiny island of Lampedusa, which saw 25 separate boat
landings on Tuesday alone.
NORTH AFRICA
In the run-up to the 2022 election, Meloni said she would impose a naval
blockade to prevent boats leaving north Africa. But analysts say that
was never going to happen for legal and ethical reasons.
Instead, Meloni has looked to revive a 2017 deal struck with Libya that
led to a huge reduction in departures, until the COVID-19 pandemic,
which then cut migrant flows to a trickle.
But the situation in North Africa has changed enormously over the past
six years, says Matteo Villa, a senior research fellow with the ISPI
think-tank, complicating efforts to hold back people looking for a
better, safer life in Europe.
"The 2017 departures were super concentrated in a few places west of
Tripoli. Today this is not the case. People are also leaving from
eastern Libya. So who do you talk to? In 2017 Italian intelligence knew
the militia, now it doesn't," he said.
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Migrants wait to disembark the Geo
Barents rescue ship, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors
Without Borders), in Bari, Italy March 26, 2023. REUTERS/Darrin
Zammit Lupi/File Photo
An added complication is that Tunisia has also become a major
springboard for migrants, with just over half of all new arrivals in
Italy this year setting sail from there, against just 5% in 2017,
despite hundreds dying in the process.
Meloni visited Tunisia twice last month, seeking progress in
unblocking loans that she says are needed to avoid a financial
crisis that might trigger a tsunami of departures.
She was accompanied on her second trip by European Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte,
highlighting pan-European concern at the situation in Tunisia, and
the rising tide of migrant landings.
BUSINESS NEEDS
A fierce critic of Brussels before her rise to power, Meloni has
been much more pragmatic since becoming prime minister, working
actively with the European Commission to revise the way migrants are
relocated across the continent.
The pact is expected to come into force this year, despite
opposition from Rome's right-wing allies in Poland and Hungary.
However, a review of migrant flows through Europe over the past
decade suggests Italy might not benefit in the way Meloni hopes.
At present many of those reaching Italy head immediately to richer
northern Europe, meaning Rome has to process fewer asylum seekers
than many EU partners - a figure representing 0.16% of its total
population over the past 12 months against an EU average of 0.22%,
according to ISPI.
"Between 2012 to 2021 one million people disembarked in Italy. We
estimate that 700,000 moved on," said ISPI's Villa.
Many businesses could have done with that labour, a message that is
getting through to the government.
Last week, it said it would issue 452,000 new work visas for non-EU
nationals from 2023 to 2025, increasing the number of permits
available each year to hit a high of 165,000 in 2025. In 2019,
before COVID struck, Italy issued just 30,850 visas.
Looking to appease anti-immigrant supporters, the government
suggested it was acting with restraint, saying companies and unions
had called for 833,000 permits in the 2023-2025 period.
Business leaders welcomed the initial increase, but say more will be
needed to tackle a longstanding demographic decline.
"Everyone knows by now that we have a shortage of both skilled and
general labour," said Michelangelo Agrusti, head of a Confindustria
business federation in north east Italy.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and Angelo Amante; Editing by Alex
Richardson)
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