Will the agreement on Tunisia be exportable throughout Africa?
The Italian-European memorandum with Tunisia could become a model for the management of migrations with North African countries. Guiglia's notebook
Two indications do not yet prove that the government is on the right track to face the problem of immigration with rigor and solidarity.
But after the third trip of the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, to Tunisia in just over a month, and the last two times accompanied by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and by the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, albeit resigning, we can at least say that the die has been cast: it is no longer up to Italy alone, but to the entire European Union to shoulder the drama of those who leave Africa by any means and at the mercy of the criminals of the sea in the hope of a better future.
Alongside this principle finally sanctioned with the solemn and not obvious presence of von der Leyen and Rutte, the criterion is affirmed that the phenomenon must be dealt with and worried before the boats of exploitation and desperation set sail full of poor people, and not already when they land – provided they manage to pass "the cemetery of the Mediterranean", as Pope Francis has called it – in the dreamed continent.
THE DOUBLE POLITICAL SIGNAL OF THE AGREEMENT
Here is the double political signal (migration is a European issue and it must be addressed in Africa) that can be deduced from the memorandum of understanding signed in Carthage with President Kais Saied. First step for an international conference on migration to be held in Rome on 23 July. "The beginning of a journey", underlines Meloni, satisfied.
Now it will be up to the president of Tunisia, which for at least a year, that is especially since institutional chaos reigns in Libya, has become the first nation of embarkation for migrants, including sub-Saharan migrants heading to Italy, to follow up on the agreement signed by the four. A thousand people landed in Lampedusa on Saturday alone.
CAN THE MEMORANDUM WITH TUNISIA BE A MODEL FOR NORTH AFRICA?
The memorandum provides for cooperation in the field of energy and in particular migration: blocking departures from Tunisia in exchange for financial aid from the EU to deal with the serious economic and social crisis in the country. A support in addition to the aid requested by Tunis also from the International Monetary Fund.
The goal now will be to understand whether the Italian-European agreement can become a model with the North African countries to govern migration together with rules that respect the rights of governments and, above all, of people.
(Published on L'Arena di Verona and Bresciaoggi)
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/accordo-tunisia-africa/ on Sat, 22 Jul 2023 06:08:47 +0000.