Migrants, Minniti: "Italy presents a European plan to stabilize Africa"

“At the next extraordinary European Council in Granada, on 6 October, Italy must present a European plan for the stabilization, development and prosperity of Africa, to quote (the Prime Minister Giorgia) Meloni, a European Mattei plan”. Marco Minniti, former Minister of the Interior, now president of the Med-Or Foundation which on behalf of Leonardo deals with the relationship with the countries of the wider Mediterranean, from Sahel at the horn of Africa. A perfect storm has unfolded in recent months: from the coups in Niger and Gabon to the war in Sudan, from the conflict between the military junta of Mali and the Tuareg tribes to the humanitarian crises in Morocco and Cyrenaica, where the floods have killed over 11 thousand people and left over 45 thousand displaced in the Derna region. “It was important – explains Minniti – that two days ago Giorgia Meloni, the leader of a large European country, focused her reasoning on Africa at the General Assembly of the United Nations, but the possibility that the UN really has a role in the management of migratory flows has a precise outline: it is Europe that must act first". The executive is trying. The Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, brought the President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen to Lampedusa: “It was a correct choice but I fear that that visit and her ten points are not enough. Italy has a historical-political mission which is to lead the way for a new relationship between Europe and Africa. In this very disordered multipolar world, which after the unforgivable Russian invasion of Ukraine is struggling to find a new order, this is the task of our country."

According to Minniti, a 1,5 billion fund is needed immediately for the last part of 2023, to which must be added adequate financing for 2024. “All this must be done immediately, before the electoral campaign for the European elections, which has already begun, you get to the heart of things making any decision impossible." The Court of Justice of the European Union rejects the rejections of French migrants at the borders with Italy, while in Catania the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella together with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier relaunches the need to give a European response to the crisis. Mattarella speaks of an 'epoch-making phenomenon, which must be governed in Europe with a courageous and new vision of the future'. “These are wise words – comments the former minister – and they go in the direction of the reasoning we were making: we call them migratory flows, but the truth is that there is an imbalance between a Europe in serious demographic recession and an Africa is growing fast, migrations are an inevitable consequence that no wall (or naval blockade) will be able to stop. An epochal issue must be addressed with vision and strategy, any particular perspective is destined to succumb."

“A European plan forAfrica – he continues – it is the intermediate tool to reach the real objective: a pact for legal immigration from that continent to Europe with three protagonists: the EU, the African Union and the UN as guarantor of respect for human rights. Within this framework, individual countries will be able to enter into bilateral agreements with African states to establish the numbers of migrants to be welcomed, which is why in Italy it is essential to overcome the Bossi-Fini rule". Alongside this, Minniti concludes – “it will be possible to act with the consent of those states with international police operations to combat traffickers. Furthermore, the agreements will guarantee the effective repatriation of those arriving irregularly."