Meloni flies to Ethiopia to relaunch the “Mattei plan”. The immigration dossier is also on the table

Today and tomorrow Giorgia Meloni will be in Ethiopia. This is the third meeting with the Ethiopian president for the premier Abiy Ahmed Ali, the last one was held in Rome two months ago, when the two leaders had agreed on a 140 million euro loan to be channeled into the Ethiopian Italian cooperation framework 2023-2025 project. The premier’s visit is also the first by a Western head of government to the country since the Pretoria peace agreement formally marked the end of the Tigray war. The meeting of these two days will serve to consolidate the bilateral relations between the two states and the Italian commitment in the Horn of Africa, both in terms of finance and development and in terms of migration, as part of what the government has repeatedly presented as the “Mattei plan” for Africa.

The program includes an initial interview with the president of the African Union Moussa Faki and, to follow, the meeting with the prime minister. Today Meloni will also see the president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, in the context of a bilateral conversation. Tomorrow, however, there will be a trilateral meeting between the prime minister and the two African presidents. Italy is well aware of the centrality of Addis Ababa for the stability of the entire region and therefore aims to support, through the participation of Italian companies, the process of Ethiopian socio-economic transformation. The idea is to support Ethiopia through the development of public works and infrastructure: toIn fact, the premier’s visit will follow an entrepreneurial mission led by another government official.

It adds to the objectives in the Horn of Africa that of creating an environment of cooperation on the migration issue. In fact, managing the flows – as seen in recent weeks through the Italian diplomatic effort to avoid the economic collapse of Tunisia – is the government’s priority. And Ethiopia is one of the countries with which the executive deems it essential to build a climate of dialogue, also because it represents a crucial junction for the migratory movements which then continue north through Sudan and Libya and from there depart to reach the Italian coasts. Furthermore, last but not least, the country led by Abiy Ahmed Ali hosts 823,000 refugees and more than 4 million displaced persons, which is why it is on the list of nations benefiting from the Flows Decree.