Europe’s establishment has failed again in dealing with the region’s migrant crisis. Boatloads of asylum seekers from North Africa have converged on the Italian island of Lampedusa, providing a new round of ammunition for Europe’s far-right and nativist political groups, widening the gulf between Europe’s North and South.
Lampedusa, which lies off the coast of north Africa, is home to about 6,000 people; many of the 126,000 migrants who have arrived in Italy by sea this year, landed on the tiny rock. Hundreds have died at sea making the journey on unseaworthy vessels in recent months. Those numbers finally prompted European President Ursula von der Leyen to join Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, at the island last week to show a united European approach.
The only concrete step was a show of bureaucratic force. The EU’s border agency, Frontex, will identify migrants arriving in Italy and repatriate those ineligible for asylum. It would also step up sea and aerial surveillance of migrant boats. Meanwhile, the Italian government has passed a law to extend detention of migrants from three to 18 months. The logistics and cost would be a challenge: Speaking with Italian politicians in Rome in the spring, I was told Italy’s migrant centers were already full.
Illustration: Mountain People
On the other hand, cynics might argue that this is hardly a political problem for Meloni, who parlayed tough talk on immigration all the way to being voted prime minister last year. Meloni might have moderated her fiery rhetoric since becoming prime minister, but there is incentive for her to return to her right-wing roots when so publicly failing on a campaign pledge going into a European election year. Her railing against Brussels-elites on the issue also highlights the North-South divide in Europe, widened by the impact of climate change.
Data indicates southern Europe is already bearing the brunt. The semi-arid region is warming 20 percent faster than the global average, according to the UN Global Environment Program. Italy’s nativist, far-right politicians in southern Europe get the fear their voters are feeling and have nimbly packaged the issues in their rhetorical toolkit.
It is no coincidence that Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has railed against what he calls attacks by Brussels that undermine Italians’ quality of life, from the failure of northern elites to protect Italy’s traditional agricultural heritage to helping Italy manage the flow of migrants. Europe’s failure to put together a comprehensive plan for Italy is giving oxygen to other nativist politicians. Salvini and Marine Le Pen, head of France’s Front National, appeared together on Sept. 17 at the league’s annual jamboree.
It is important to remember, too, that it is not a one-sided trauma as movingly suggested by a video clip filmed by a journalist from la Repubblica in February, after almost 100 people drowned in high seas off Crotone in Calabria in Italy’s toe. In the grainy hand-held film, a local fisherman driving a car up and down the beach where the wrecked ship landed, explains he is there day and night “with torches,” because he promised a mother he hauled out of the water he would bring her the body of her dead son when it washed ashore. As his eyes continually search the water’s edge, the man explains that he had gone out in his boat, but did not manage to pull one person alive from the water.
He believed he had rescued a child “because his eyes were open.”
“But no, he was dead, too,” he repeats, like a tape stuck in a loop.
European countries need to agree to share the task of settling recognized refugees, now and for the long term. Talking tough and promoting deterrence, such as paying countries like Libya or Tunisia to keep people from leaving, clearly has not worked. There is no reason to believe people will not keep coming either.
It is all too clear in the general and in the particular that there is need for a new template to manage the endless flows. Von der Leyen’s intervention means Lampedusa’s latest crisis is probably now in abeyance, but the terrible earthquake in Morocco threatens to turn Spain and its North African enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta into the next hot spots.
What about after that? We shall know soon enough.
Rachel Sanderson is a contributor to Bloomberg Opinion. She was previously a columnist at the Financial Times. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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