"The rest of the cargo": How Italy is fighting the migrants

The new Italian government does not have much leeway, neither financially nor in terms of foreign policy.

"The rest of the cargo": How Italy is fighting the migrants

The new Italian government does not have much leeway, neither financially nor in terms of foreign policy. Migrants come in handy to demonstrate toughness to their own voters. That's what it's all about - a political spectacle.

One should understand the government of Giorgia Meloni. She is in a predicament. The right-wing coalition of the new Italian Prime Minister has practically no political room for maneuver - except in the fight against migrants. He is now managed with all means.

That's the starting point: the Italians can shake off all illusions about "free going into debt" and fulfilling campaign promises, including a minimum pension of 1,000 euros for everyone over the age of 60. Meloni knows that. Politically, however, this is dangerous for them, because it could upset their own electorate. Because Italy is financially completely dependent on the EU: The country must gradually fulfill the agreements for the EU's reconstruction fund, of which a total of 750 billion euros are to be spent around 200 in Italy. Italy was given preference for distribution because the country suffered the most in the first year of the Covid19 pandemic, 2020. The distribution among the 27 EU countries would be a different matter today, after almost three years of the pandemic. Anyway, the lion's share goes to Italy.

In return, Italy must implement reforms designed to make the country resilient to crises and fit for the future, as stated in the national recovery and resilience plan. One of the most important fields is the judiciary, so that it no longer takes an average of four years before you experience the final verdict in a civil trial in Italy. In addition, Italy must open its own markets to European competitors, abolish privileges and combat massive tax evasion. All measures that do not go down well with many voters in the legal alliance. Without reforms, however, no cash will come out of Brussels, nor will the ECB support purchases. Rome must deliver without long discussions.

The Meloni government is also in a straitjacket when it comes to foreign policy. She must not allow any doubts to arise about her loyalty to NATO and about her support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, as they too would ultimately endanger the steady flow of money across the Alps. So the President of the Government, Giorgia Meloni - that's not a typo: Giorgia Meloni wants to be addressed as il Presidente del Consiglio, as President of the Council of Ministers, although the Italian would also have offered la Presidente - made "defending the borders" an absolute priority. But who is endangering Italy's borders?

"Prime Minister Meloni" knows that "he" can only meet the political expectations of his electorate at home. To whom should Meloni be hard and unyielding? There is no better opponent than the migrants: They look different, speak different languages, are poor, have no connections and don't bring any money with them. This is an important point, as rich foreigners of different skin color and culture are of course welcome, as evidenced by the number of foreign football club owners in Italy.

So the fight against the migrants. But against whom exactly? The fact is that 88,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean in Italy this year, compared to 56,000 in 2021. This is truly not an "invasion", even if the numbers are increasing. And actually, their arrival and distribution via the other EU countries has so far been well and quietly regulated.

Let's go into detail, because that's where the devil is, as we all know: almost 90 percent of the migrants came to Italy on their own boats this year or were rescued from distress at sea by the ships of the Italian Coast Guard. Together, the NGOs have rescued around 9,000 people from distress at sea, mostly in international waters off Libya.

Italy's previous practice was to assign the NGO ships - there are currently four in the central Mediterranean - to a safe haven, a "Port of Safety" (POS), where the rescued were left ashore when an "emergency" became known. There they were identified and a decision was made as to whether they would be given the right to stay or asylum, or whether they should be deported again.

For many years, Italy has been implementing deportations with a rule that could be called pragmatic: Those to be deported are given a foglia di via, a deportation order, which states that they must leave Italy within a week by their own means. Of course, practically all of the migrants then travel on by train, most of them to Germany. While around 800,000 refugees landed on Italy's coasts during the years of the Syrian crisis, only one in four of them applied for asylum in Italy. To this day, the EU has silently tolerated this in order to keep Italy calm. The numbers were not large, and there was no other way of organizing the European solidarity demanded by Italy.

Let's get to the NGOs. The landing of refugees on board an NGO ship always begins with the assignment of a POS for the ship. This is how the international law of the sea, the Hamburg Convention, regulates it. The flag under which a ship sails is irrelevant. Which is only logical. If a ship flying the Chinese flag picks up shipwrecked people off Buenos Aires, nobody would expect the shipping company to take them to China, but according to the convention, they have to be taken "to the nearest safe port".

But this is exactly where the Meloni government comes in. German flag - shipwrecked to Germany, so their logic. Norwegian flag - off to Norway. This is incompatible with the law of the sea, but the questions of the UN refugee charter, the law of the sea or the Dublin rules are bohemian villages for most people. So the propaganda works.

The government in Rome is playing with it. The new Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, "does it a lot smarter than Matteo Salvini," says lawyer Vitalba Azzollini. While Salvini, head of the right-wing Lega party, played "the shovel excavator" when he was interior minister, "the new interior minister is the foil fencer. He's trying to use legal sophistry to prevent the refugees, the migrants, from landing."

A change of method in the "fight against the migrants" was necessary because Salvini had simply refused entry to the NGO ships. He made them wait outside until judges ordered them admitted under threat of imprisonment and fines. Salvini also has a trial running in Sicily for this, in which he is accused of deprivation of liberty.

So the Salvini method wasn't really clever, it was too brutal, just like the bulldozer method. What is the new interior minister doing in consultation with Salvini, who is now transport minister? Piantedose's plan consists of three steps, as we can see in the case of the NGO ships in the port of Catania.

Firstly, the NGO ships are allowed to enter the port. But they are not allowed to enter the port as an "assignment of a POS", but the port authority simply allows them to dock. This deliberately ignores the fact that there are migrants on board. Without POS instruction, the NGO ships will be treated like any other ship in the port. The captain therefore has no right to hand over the migrants to the Red Cross, which is waiting at the pier. Because migrants on board were not declared to be the reason for the ship's entry. "A real legal sophistry," says Azzollini.

Second step: the authorities go on board and look for those they consider "in need of help", usually minors and women. In Italian it means selezione, selection. Not a nice word, not a nice concept. But it gets even worse in the third part of the Piantedosi plan, which was communicated and implemented in exactly the same way: After the selection on the ship, the Minister of the Interior gave the captain of "Humanity 1", on which there were still 35 male refugees, the order to "leave the port with the remaining cargo for international waters". In Italian: con il carico residuale, with the rest of the load. This means 35 people, refugees whose status has not been checked, who were not allowed to see a lawyer. What should the captain do with these people now? Launch on a buoy?

In Italy, however, there is resistance, "inhuman", a "reminder of the worst times of the selection", judged many critics.

Legally, this is a classic case of "refoulement", rejection without any individual examination, for which Italy was already condemned in 2012 by the European Court of Human Rights. But it is the new practice in Italy: the fight against migrants as an identitarian measure, in the absence of other leeway. You fight against Germany through the gang, no longer directly.

There would be a much more direct way to organize the migration, to reduce the number. We know where the migrants come from. Of the 88,000 migrants this year, 46,000 came from Egypt, Tunisia and Bangladesh. Countries with which Italy has good diplomatic relations. Why isn't the Meloni government trying to reach an agreement with these countries?

Certainly, an agreement is much less media-effective than a phalanx of police officers in full gear stationed at the port of Catania, who with martial gestures prevent a few dozen poor refugees from going ashore.