The head of the Italian government is clearly anti-immigration. But some of the far-right leader’s campaign promises have proven unrealizable since she came to power.
New measures to continue to show a hard line against the arrival of migrants on its territory. The Italian government announced, Monday September 18, the creation of new detention centers, as well as the extension of the duration of this detention – from 135 days to 18 months – for migrants in an irregular situation and whose application for immigration has been rejected. asylum. These announcements follow the landing in a few days of some 8,500 exiles in Lampedusa, more than the entire population of the transalpine island.
Since her victory in the legislative elections in 2022, the president of the Italian Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, has adopted a far-right discourse openly hostile to immigration which she readily describes as “massive”. The head of government, head of the nationalist Fratelli d’Italia party, first defended the idea of a naval blockade to prevent the arrival of exiles on the Italian coasts. “The only way to stop illegal immigration is a maritime blockade, that is to say a European mission in agreement with the North African authorities. This is the only way we can put an end to it. to illegal departures to Italy and the tragedy of deaths at sea”she declared in August 2022, recalls the InfoMigrants information site.
A promise of a blockade with no future
“We don’t really know what she intended to put in place. These are announcement effects: proposing things which remain vague and which are unachievable”, analyzes Camille Le Coz, researcher at the Migration Policy Institute think tank. “It’s a way of diverting attention from the real issues, from the management of arrivals,” continues Helena Hahn, researcher specializing in migration at the European Policy Centre.
“These measures are presented as a way to solve the problem, but they do not work, for practical or legal reasons.”
Helena Hahn, researcher at the European Policy Centerat franceinfo
The far-right leader has since tempered her speeches on this maritime blockade, while advocating a second controversial measure which is also difficult to implement: the creation of “hotspots” outside the European Union, where exiles would remain time to examine their asylum application. “This is an old idea, purely illusory”, slice Camille Le Coz, pointing “a gap between vague and populist campaign promises and the reality of power”. Such a measure has already been mentioned by Denmark or the United Kingdom, without success at this stage.
Over the months, Giorgia Meloni’s anti-immigration speeches have also clashed with the reality of the figures. The one which hoped to limit migratory flows saw the arrivals of illegal exiles significantly increase in one year, recalls The world : around 113,000 arrivals were recorded between January and August, more than double compared to the same period a year earlier. Political instability, persecutions, economic crises… “Structural factors mean that people will continue to migrate,” underlines Camille Le Coz. The specialist also recalls that the situation, for black migrants in Tunisia, “has become untenable”, pushing them even further onto the roads of exile.
“Giorgia Meloni can have a radical speech, but people who migrate don’t listen to her.”
Camille Le Coz, researcher at the Migration Policy Instituteat franceinfo
Faced with these increasing arrivals, Giorgia Meloni’s Italy is going further in outsourcing, relying on third countries for the management (and limitation) of migration. At the end of July, the head of the Italian government organized a conference in Rome with leaders from around the Mediterranean, around the launch – still in its early stages – of the “Rome process”. Its priorities are “fight against illegal immigration, management of legal immigration flows, support for refugees, and above all, the most important thing: broad cooperation to support the development of Africa, and particularly of the countries of origin” migrants. The project is in line with the partnership signed between the EU and Tunisia, aimed in particular at combating irregular immigration.
A counterproductive doctrine
For Camille Le Coz, the Italian government cooperates with Tunisia “saying: ‘You stop the migrants’, being ready for a very security approach and supporting an increasingly problematic government.” “The government wants to show that it can control, and it is ready to go as far as possible,” but “Italy cannot act alone.” The specialist in issues related to migration in Europe notes that Giorgia Meloni ultimately had “a more European approach than his initial speech suggested”.
This line of cooperation with third countries, such as Tunisia, is contested. At the beginning of August, more than a thousand migrants were forced to wander in the desert, without water or food. And in neighboring Libya, serious human rights violations have been documented. This doctrine can also have the opposite effect to that expected, defends Helena Hahn. “When these policies are announced, they can lead to reactions, last-ditch attempts,” estimates the specialist.
“These agreements will involve more control [au départ], which can cause a feeling of panic. Migrants, sometimes under pressure from smugglers, will try one last chance to cross the Mediterranean.” Leading to an increase in exiles to Europe… and the risk of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, already responsible for the deaths of more than 25,000 migrants since 2014, according to data from the “Missing Migrants Project” led by an agency of the UN.
Rescues at sea under duress
At the start of the year, a measure from the Meloni government targeted the work of NGOs operating in the Mediterranean. A decree established a mandatory disembarkation rule after a single rescue, “de facto preventing several rescues”, notes Jérôme Tubiana, operations advisor for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on migration and refugee issues. At the same time, the authorities “assigned to NGOs increasingly distant disembarkation ports, in the north of Italy, up to four days at sea”. The Council of Europe hastened to write to the Italian Interior Minister to express its concerns.
Jérôme Tubiana recalls that NGOs contested these measures, “but for this, they were regularly sanctioned by the Italian authorities”. If he had respected the decree to the letter, the MSF rescue boat, the Geo Barentswould have gone from 4.5 saves on average per rotation to just one, according to Jérôme Tubiana. “In 2022, we have carried out 59 rescues of 3,848 migrants. If we could have only done one rescue per rotation, we would have only carried out 14 rescues of 1,033 migrants.”
“Even if they were not fully implemented, Giorgia Meloni’s measures hampered rescue at sea sufficiently for it to be believed that they caused an increase in deaths in the central Mediterranean.”
Jérôme Tubiana, advisor to Doctors Without Bordersat franceinfo
The new measures targeting sea rescue NGOs continue the policy led by the former Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, between 2018 and 2019. This far-right figure, now Minister of Infrastructure and Transport , had been in conflict with associations operating in the Mediterranean. Another continuity, according to Helena Hahn: that of the “pass” policy, which allows exiles to transit through Italy to reach other European countries.
Pragmatism and change of discourse
The Italian policy of humanitarian corridors also continues under the governance of Giorgia Meloni, specifies Camille Le Coz. It currently allows the entry into Italy of more than a thousand Syrian refugees from Lebanon and sub-Saharan African exiles from Morocco. “There is this logic of saying: ‘We have legal avenues for ‘real’ refugees, but we want to put an end to irregular immigration'”, she emphasizes.
The Meloni government also recognizes its need for significant economic immigration, in the face of an aging population and sectors in demand for labor. The authorities have therefore planned the arrival of 452,000 foreign workers by 2025, according to official data. “It’s very pragmatic behavior, comments Matteo Villa, migration specialist, to Politico. There has been a change in discourse.” According to the Financial Times, Italy has until now issued fewer than 31,000 work permits per year to foreign workers from outside the European Union.