Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has a plan. Italy has an enormous problem from all possible dimensions with the arrival of refugees, shipwrecks and hundreds of deaths, the management of its asylum and internal political reactions. So the plan is going to bring the issue to the European board as many times as necessary, in all the scenarios in which it is possible.
Last week, Meloni sent a written request to the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, for the leaders of the 27 to address the issue at their meeting in Granada for an Informal Council this Friday. The request was heard and accepted, it will be one of the daily items on the agenda and there are several references for now in the draft of the joint text that is being prepared. But in addition, the Italian shoehorned the issue in also this Thursday, by calling a petit committee meeting that ended up including some of the continent’s heavyweights, a decision that the Spanish Government, host of the event, did not like too much.
The rooms of the Granada Conference Center were not suitable for great things. Italy had a small one, about four people and their team, so the prime minister decided to invite the British Rishi Sunak, the Albanian Edi Rama and the Dutchman Mark Rutte. Rama is a neighbor with whom the relationship, in immigration matters, has always been complicated. Rutte seemed an obvious candidate, since he has participated in the last year in the meetings that both and the president of the Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, have held with Tunisia. And Sunak, diplomatic sources explain, the perfect guest. “Your country has a clear position on the immigration issue and has implemented measures without equivalent or precedent. The European position is not to imitate the Rwanda model, but the message that Rome sends is clear: ‘We are not like the prime ministers precedents that only ask for solidarity and make do if it does not arrive. We are willing to look for solutions,'” these sources explain.
However, what seemed like a small meeting suddenly became something else, when Von der Leyen herself and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, joined. Those were already heavyweights. Missing was Chancellor Scholz, who had other bilateral talks agreed upon. And the Spanish unrest. Because of the Italian’s attempt to monopolize attention and move away from the broader objective of the European Political Community, which is to bring closer positions with other neighbors. And because Sánchez himself, busy as host, could not attend.
Nothing concrete came out of the talk, nor was it expected. But the time to talk about migration is not that it is unbeatable, but that it is inevitable. On Wednesday, the ambassadors of the 27 reached an agreement to establish their position on one of the five regulations that make up the reform of the Migration and Asylum Pact, which refers precisely to crisis and emergency management. The Interior Ministers should have done it last week, but Italy, after months of clashes with Berlin, opposed it. The issue ended up coming up, with some concessions everywhere. But it happened with the vote against, again, and the indignation, once again, of Hungary and Poland.
The placo Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who was not invited to that small meeting but who asked Meloni for a bilateral talk, warned this Thursday of a “total veto” of the Migration Pact in the face of what he considers “pressure and blackmail.” In a video posted with just over a week left for the national elections, Morawiecki reaffirms his position against “the bureaucrats in Brussels and their real bosses, those in Berlin” who are trying, as he said a few days ago, “to implement an insane plan.” that “will flood Warsaw with illegal immigrants, shootings, attacks and riots,” in statements reported by EFE. The EU has not closed the issue, long negotiations are pending with the European Parliament and experience shows that trying to impose something like this on those who do not want it only leads to fights, lawsuits, friction, blockades and revenge.
The issue is red-hot. Italy still believes that it does not receive enough aid or solidarity, and wants European pacts like the one reached with Turkey at the time and now Tunisia, to give the money that is necessary (and look the other way in the face of rights violations and drifts). authoritarian) in exchange for African countries stopping boat departures. But these agreements, in addition to being dangerous and difficult to defend from any moral point of view, are also very unstable. The European Commissioner responsible for Neighborhood, Oliver Varhelyi, attacked on Thursday on his social networks against the Tunisian Government, which does not stop tightening the rope, urging them to return the 60 million euros just received if they are not happy with the things they sign. . A surprising shock of tone on the part of the Commission. This Friday, in Granada, second day, only among the 27 and fighting for specific words, but above all to define the next steps after 10 years of fierce struggle.
