On Sunday, Italy saw an exceptional situation when two rescue ships of aid organizations landed in Italian ports. The ships were carrying more than 500 people rescued from the central Mediterranean.
Earlier in the fall, the situation was different.
At the beginning of November, the same ships, the Geo Barents of the Médecins Sans Frontières organization and the Humanity 1 of the German organization SOS Humanity, stood in the port of Catania in Sicily for several days, waiting for permission from Italy that all the people on board could disembark.
It was due to the fact that the prime minister who won the elections in September by Giorgia Meloni the right-wing government has promised to tighten immigration policy. Meloni has announced, for example, that Italy would no longer accept migrants and asylum seekers rescued from the Mediterranean by organizations.
Investigator Marco Siddi says the Meloni government’s actions violate both Italian law and international law.
Siddi works as a senior researcher at the Institute for Foreign Policy and as a docent at the universities of Helsinki and Tampere. He estimates that the actions of Meloni’s government have little effect on immigration.
By stopping the rescue ships, the government is mainly trying to collect loose points, Siddi told .
– The government’s honeymoon period will not last long. It will face difficult times because of Italy’s bad economic situation, Siddi estimates.
Continuation of tough immigration policy
During the current year, almost 98,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in Italy from the central Mediterranean route, it appears Information from the UN refugee agency UNHCR (you will switch to another service).
The ships of various organizations rescue and bring to the EU’s coastal states only an estimated 10-15 percent of these people, says research doctor Elisa Pascucci from the University of Helsinki.
According to him, lifeboats have therefore become a bigger issue in Italy.
Pascucci reminds us that Italy’s tough grip on immigration is nothing new in itself.
– For the government, immigration is a central theme. But at the same time, it is a smaller theme than a few years ago, Pascucci states.
For example By Giuseppe Conte the first government followed a strict line on immigration.
The right-wing populist Northern Alliance party Matteo Salvini worked in Conte’s government as Minister of the Interior 2018-2019. The period is particularly remembered for the case in court, when Salvini did not allow the Italian border guard vessel that rescued asylum seekers and migrants trying to reach Europe to land.
Also the communications manager of the Finland branch of the organization Lääkirit ilm rajoja Kaisa Väkiparta says that access to a safe harbor has been a “fundamental problem” even before Meloni’s government.
– Every time people are rescued from the Mediterranean, we start long negotiations with different countries about where the people can be brought, Väkiparta says.
According to Italy’s right-wing government, those rescued from the sea should be directed to the countries whose flag the ship in question sails under. For example, MSF’s Geo Barents sails under the Norwegian flag.
Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi assured on Sunday that the release of rescue ships into Italian ports does not mean a change in government policy. The ships were allowed to land on Sunday because the bad weather caused a danger, Piantedosi reasoned.
This time, too, the ships were not allowed into the port immediately, but had to wait at sea for several days.
The government balances its immigration policy
Italy’s reluctance to let the organizations’ ships into its ports has irritated me criticism at the EU level (you move to another service). In November, the situation escalated, especially between Italy and neighboring France. France received one charity ship turned by Italy.
The immigration situation in the Central Mediterranean has also been on display at EU tables during the fall.
According to the researchers interviewed by , Meloni’s government cannot completely refuse to accept those rescued from the sea, because it cannot afford to jeopardize its relationship with the EU.
– Italy is completely dependent on the funds coming from the EU, says Marco Siddi, senior researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute.
Italy, for example, receives considerable support and loans from the recovery fund agreed by the EU in 2020. The amount rises to almost 200 billion euros.
Researcher Pascucci describes the Italian government’s situation as a paradox. Meloni has to keep relations with the EU in order, even though his party belongs to the political group in Europe that is most opposed to reforming the asylum system. The same group includes, for example, the main governing parties of Poland and Hungary.
According to Siddi, Meloni’s government cannot hide behind the immigration-related issues that get a lot of attention indefinitely, when inflation is galloping and a solution should also be found to the energy crisis.
– Meloni’s board needs to say something political about all these issues, Siddi estimates.
Source: Reuters