Schlein rejects the EU-Tunisia agreement on migrants: “Wrong approach like Libya and Turkey”

After 48 hours Elly Schlein broke the silence and put on paper the position of the Democratic Party on the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the EU and Tunisia, signed in Carthage by the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyenthe president of the Council Giorgia Meloni and the Dutch premier Mark Rutte. “The memorandum between the EU and Tunisia is yet another attempt to outsource border control without taking into account respect for democracy and human rights. We do not share an approach which, from a security perspective, focuses only on the aspect of curbing flows,” the Pd secretary told reporters on the sidelines of this morning’s meeting of socialist leaders in Brussels. She then added, “It’s an approach we’ve seen in the past with the Türkiye and with Libyaand I can’t agree.”

On immigration, therefore, a complete change of position of the party is confirmed, which already took place with the vote of the dem deputies in the Defense and Foreign Affairs commissions of the Chamber – both last year and a few months ago – against refinancing to the Libyan coast guard. But to grasp the turnaround in its entirety it is necessary to read a few lines of the interview with Libero with which the former interior minister dem two days ago Marco Minniti, who between 2016 and 2018 at the Interior Ministry faced the immigration emergency with a pragmatic and realistic attitude, bringing the landings that between 2014 and 2017 had been between 180 and 120 thousand a year to 23 thousand in 2019, commented the news of the signing of the memorandum. “It is a big step towards the stabilization of Tunisia, which is leading the way for the stabilization of Africa which is the secondary front of the asymmetric war with Ukraine. Then we will have to think about Libya and Egypt. Obviously for the EU human rights will not be ignored. Let us not forget the symbolic meaning for a democracy born, and the only one preserved, after the Arab spring”. And on the other hand, for the former dem minister it is precisely the old agreements with Türkiye and Libya – which made the flows of immigrants sustainable for Italy and for the EU – which Meloni should be inspired by: “Merkel must have the role to break the African stalemate and stabilize the territories”, said the former minister in reference to the financing European Union worth 3 billion which sanctioned the agreement with Erdogan’s Turkey for the reception of Syrian migrants.

On the other hand, also some dem administratorsaware of the growing pressure on the Italian reception circuit, in a moment of great pressure on Italy – with landings that in 2023 are already over 75 thousand, more than half from Tunisia, more than doubled compared to last year – they welcomed the deal. “Anything that can facilitate reception and decrease the flow of immigration is positive”, said the Pd governor of Tuscany for example Eugene Giani. While the mayor of Prato Matteo Biffoni explained to Il Foglio: “The system is saturated. Instead, for years we have only heard talk of landings: but where do we put these people? And how should they employ themselves in a work or study activity?”. Biffoni asks for more resources for reception, undoubtedly important for transforming an “emergency system” into a “structural system”, but indirectly he also explains the importance of regulate flows so that this sustainability can exist concretely.

From the new secretariat concrete solutions are not advanced. The line is that the old approach must be archived, as confirmed by the immigration manager of the Pd secretariat, the regional councilor of Lombardy Pierfrancesco Majorino: “We have already made mistakes in the past, even with the best of intentions, in the time of Marco Minniti”. Waiting to decide what the new approach is and what to answer to those in the area facing concrete problems.