Italy is experiencing migration pressure similar to 2017. Frontex, the European border control agency, reported yesterday that the Central Mediterranean was the most active route in the first three months of 2023, when almost 28,000 irregular crossings, three times as many as in the same period last year. In March alone, some 13,200 people have arrived in Europe via this route, the majority coming from the Ivory Coast, Guinea and Pakistan.
The Frontex report comes a day after the Government of Giorgia Meloni decreed the application of the state of emergency for the migration issue, a measure that will last six months and for which a party has already been approved of five million euros. Although the consequences are not yet known, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) sees it favorably. "It is urgent to quickly find places of reception for a flow of migrants that is quite significant from a logistical point of view," says Flavio di Giacomo, spokesman for this United Nations organization for the Mediterranean. This is a mechanism by which, in specific situations – usually natural disasters – the Italian Executive is given extraordinary powers to make the procedures less burdensome. "The state of emergency is nothing out of the ordinary because it had already been declared a few years ago. It is an instrument that the Government uses to speed up administrative and bureaucratic procedures and prevent public tenders from being extended to find accommodation places", says Di Giacomo.
In Italy, the critical situation is concentrated on the island of Lampedusa, which is closest to Tunisia, a country where recent instability due to the economic crisis and increased tensions after President Kaïs Saïed accused the sub-Saharans of representing a "danger" have led to an increase in departures, which already exceed those on the Libyan coast. Given the lack of rescue ships and with the shipwrecks in the sights of the Italian Government (the ship Louise Michel remains blocked), the boats that manage to avoid the Libyan and Tunisian coast guards end up landing in Lampedusa. At this moment the small reception center on the island, with a capacity for around 300 people, is overflowing. This weekend there were more than 1,600 people at the access point. "The center is full and we need to speed up mobility", emphasizes Di Giacomo.
The Italian state of emergency is also a call to attention in Brussels by the Meloni Executive, who has been calling for a European solution to the migration challenge for months. Yesterday Europea "took note" of the declaration of this measure, according to the Community spokeswoman for the Interior, Anitta Hipper, who assured that they are in "close contact" with Rome to see the implications of a "national competence ". "We will have to see the measures in detail before commenting on them", he concluded.
