The crisis in Tunisia and beyond. The reality that beats the bales

Reality one, populism zero. The so-called “migrant emergency” facing the Italian executive today – in the last 90 days about twenty thousand people have landed in Italy, since the beginning of the year 3,216 have arrived in Greece, 3,852 in Spain – it had the effect of putting certain realities before the main shareholders of the government majorityand maybe even some truths, difficult to handle but impossible not to list.

The first interesting reality, useful to frame more from the media point of view than from the political one, is there to clearly show the limits of an old sovereign syllogism, roughly summarized as follows: if a country suddenly finds itself having to deal with a “migrant emergency”, the main responsibility for that emergency lies with the authorities of the host country, authorities who irresponsibly created the conditions to push migrants to leave their own countries. In other words, if in Matteo Piantedosi’s place today there were Luciana Lamorgese at the Interior Ministry, or any other minister who is not part of a government majority led by Meloni and Salvini, today Meloni and Salvini would have asked for his head, accusing that minister of being responsible for the “emergency” (and this is why in recent days Minister Piantedosi has felt obliged to explain that the real pull factor, in the migratory phenomena, is not the government of a country but it is, listen, listen, the media system of the host country, and with this stunt we expect at any moment to see the Minister of the Interior parade as the guest of honor of a Cirque du Soleil show).

The second reality that presents itself in a traumatic way before the eyes of the sovereign government today indicates a truth that is difficult to digest but also here impossible not to illuminate. And the reality is this. Faced with the first real systemic crisis linked to immigration, the populists have discovered that there is no effective strategy on this terrain that does not pass through the immediate and forced removal of some promises listed in the electoral campaign by the champions of sovereignty. Flows cannot be stopped, as was said. The departures cannot be stopped, as promised. Immigration cannot be blocked, as was claimed. Ports cannot be closed, as was preached. Naval blockades cannot be implemented, as they had raved about. But, on the contrary, in the face of migratory phenomena the only possible verb to use is the one that sovereignists have always rejected with violence: to govern, of course. And so, today, to govern the phenomenon, to deal in particular with the systemic crisis that Tunisia is going throughwhich has become the main sea route adopted by migrants to get closer to Europe, the Meloni government has found itself having to deal with a reality made up of at least five points.

First: studying political containment mechanisms, working with Tunisia to strengthen the country’s coastguard. Second: to strengthen agreements with Tunisia for the repatriation of irregular migrants, agreements which currently provide for the sending from Italy to the North African country of a ship from Genoa every two weeks and two flights a week. Third: to offer Tunisia not only logistical but also financial support to give oxygen to a country which, with all possible limits, still remains a democracy. Fourth: to build, with the help of the European Union, humanitarian corridors that are not only theoretical, but practical, fast, efficient. And, fifth, to transform the incoming flows towards Italy also into an economic opportunity for our country, revising upwards the regular incoming flows towards Italy, and trying to transform the phenomenon into an opportunity to respond to the very strong demand for manpower that comes from the country’s businesses.

Passing, at the national level, from the season of populism to that of pragmatism will not be easy, but it will be necessary. And it will be even more necessary to follow a new approach, one of discontinuity with one’s past, even on a different level, in which the populism of sovereignists struggles to pass from demagoguery to reality.

Problem number one: how will Meloni bet on relocation in Europe since the first opponents of this policy are two close friends of Meloni and Salvini, such as Orbán (Hungary) and Morawiecki (Poland)?

Problem number two: how will Giorgia Meloni ask for greater solidarity with the European Union without having an agenda in favor of reviewing the Dublin treaty and without having the intention of recovering the so-called dublinants that the countries that could collaborate with Italy on the front of solidarity have been asking Italy for months to recover without success (Germany, Belgium, Holland, France)?

Problem number three: how will Giorgia Meloni reactivate the European Sophia mission if the one who in the recent past demanded and obtained the closure of the mission, accusing the Sophia operation of being an immigration pull factor, was none other than number two of this government, or Matteo Salvini?

Problem number four: how can immigration be considered only an Italian problem, “they left us alone”, when every year in Europe there are three million immigrants who arrive in our continent and when about eight tenths of arrivals in Italy are only migrants passing through Italy to go to France and Germany (Italy is the first country of entry into the EU, but it is only the fifth country in the EU in terms of number of asylum seekers: Germany has three times as many , France two)?

The so-called “migrant emergency” facing the Italian executive today has forced the sovereignists to come to terms with reality, to think about their own propaganda, to question their own promises and to pass, more or less explicitly, from the season of stopping to that of governing. It is not certain that the Italy of Meloni and Salvini will be able to obtain successes on these dossiers (in truth, the opposite has happened so far). But knowing that the Meloni government has begun to understand that every immigration strategy must go through the removal of one’s promises is a show worth paying the ticket for. And who knows, maybe in perspective it will give us some satisfaction. Reality one, populism zero.

• 
  

• Claudio Cerasa Director

• Born in Palermo in 1982, he has lived in Rome for a long time, has been working at Il Foglio since 2005 and has been director since January 2015. He has written a few books (“The chains of the left”, with Rizzoli, “I cannot be silent”, with Einaudi, “Between the donkey and the dog. Conversation on Italy”, with Rizzoli, “La Presa di Roma”, with Rizzoli, and “Ho visto l’uomo nero”, with Castelvecchi), is on Twitter. He is an Inter fan, but above all from Palermo. He’s crazy about Green Days, the Strokes, the Killers, chocolate brownies and frozen oysters. Two sons.