Leader of the opposition, Giorgia Meloni adopted warrior accents to demand a naval blockade of the North African coasts. Head of government, she now uses a hushed voice to present herself as “Africa’s main interlocutor” in the West. At the G7 summit in Hiroshima last May, she defended the need for “better collaboration with the global South”. At the NATO meeting in Vilnius, at the beginning of July, she urged her partners to “strengthen NATO in Africa and the Middle East”. In Washington two weeks later, she became the spokesperson for her “friend” President Kaïs Saïed so that the IMF would release a loan of 1.9 billion dollars essential to the stability of Tunisia. An intermediary role that it could also play for Ethiopia, which is currently negotiating a loan of 2 billion dollars.
The one who wanted to set up the Mediterranean as an insurmountable barrier has become the President of the Council who has crossed it the most! In January, Giorgia Meloni travels to Algeria to become Italy’s top gas supplier, then to Libya, where hydrocarbon giant ENI strikes deals worth 8 billion euros to increase production and exports from the North African country. After an official visit to Ethiopia in the spring to “promote the stability of the continent”, she multiplies the round trips to Tunis to be the craftsman of the partnership agreement between the EU and Tunisia, which provides in particular for aid of 105 million euros intended to fight against smugglers. According to Rome, more than 80,000 people, mainly from Tunisia, have arrived on the Italian coast since the start of the year, compared to 33,000 over the same period in 2022.
“This partnership must be a model for building new relations with our neighbors in North Africa”, she pleaded when it was signed on July 17, accompanied by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and of the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte.
This photo published by the press service of the Tunisian presidency shows Kais Saied alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, on June 11, 2023 in Tunis.
© / AFP
A week later, she spoke in Rome in the midst of twenty African and Arab heads of state as part of an international conference on migration. The opportunity to defend once again a “virtuous model of collaboration and growth” between the EU and Africa, which will make it possible to obtain “concrete results in the fight against illegal immigration, the management of legal flows , support for refugees and, above all, broad cooperation to support Africa’s development”.
Careful speaking
Forgotten, therefore, the warmongering rhetoric of the leader of Fratelli d’Italia against “the invasion of migrants”. The President of the Council presents her country as “the natural bridge” with the continent facing it and an ideal “crossroads” of energy distribution between North Africa and Europe. “Giorgia Meloni is eminently pragmatic, believes Ruth Hanau Santini, specialist in international relations at L’Orientale University in Naples. Getting elected is one thing, governing is another. Western chancelleries expected a messy approach, populist and extremist. It is quite the opposite, and they are destabilized. She acts with calm, seriousness and discretion to achieve her objectives. Unlike Matteo Salvini, she has a real medium and long-term vision of relations with tie with Africa. Her approach is post-ideological and holistic, and her voice is chiseled. She prefers to evoke aid for economic development rather than falling into the slogan, which could be considered racist, ‘let’s help them at home ‘ And when she advocates ‘parity and non-predatory’ cooperation, it’s a way of attacking her European partners without explicitly naming them.”
And without inviting them either, since neither Germany nor, above all, France were invited to the international conference on migration in Rome on July 23. A Hexagon put on the same level as China or Russia by those close to Giorgia Meloni, who denounce their “neocolonialism”.
Back-to-school strategic summit
A strategy that is not devoid of commercialism. Meloni would like to develop trade with Africa, which remains modest: 70 billion euros, nearly three times less than those between Rome and Berlin. It’s not win. “Our economic presence is derisory, apart from ENI and a few companies specializing in the construction of infrastructure, explains Ruth Hanau Santini. Our SMEs-SMIs are struggling to internationalize. To conquer the African market, it would take a titanic effort This promise will remain a mirage. On the other hand, the geostrategic activism led by Italy is much more serious and can bear fruit.”
As early as 2015, transalpine diplomacy had forged the concept of “Enlarged Mediterranean”. The interests of the peninsula should not be confined to the shores of the Maghreb, but also to the Sahel, the Levant, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. Military cooperation agreements have been concluded with Niger and Burkina Faso, and embassies have been opened in Niamey, Ouagadougou, Conakry and Bamako. “The staff there is competent and motivated, confides an Italian diplomat. Giorgia Meloni is a follower of Realpolitik and notes that France leaves a vacant place. The history of our country allows a simpler approach on the continent, and it can learn from the mistakes made by the French rival.”
The President of the Council keeps repeating that “Italy has all the cards in hand to play the leading role in the Mediterranean”. She will shoot the most important at the start of the school year during an Italy-Africa intergovernmental summit to be held in Rome. A “Mattei plan” of cooperation with still vague outlines will be unveiled there.