Italy’s Libyan ‘vision’ pays off as migrant flows drop
Minister says Libyan coast guard now saving more migrants than ‘the whole international apparatus.’Politico
By Giulia Paravicini
10 August 2017
At the time, his EU counterparts considered this a risky and unrealistic strategy because of the political chaos in Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Seven months later, the latest figures released by Minniti’s ministry on Thursday suggest his vision was right.
In the first 10 days of August, the number of migrants making the crossing to Italian shores, mainly from Libya, fell 76 percent compared to the same period last year, meaning 1,572 migrants made the journey as opposed to 6,554 a year ago. Strong indications of a clear change in migration patterns had already emerged in July when the number of arrivals halved compared to the previous year.
“We had a strategy, a vision, which like every vision could be right or wrong, but at least we had one,” Minniti told POLITICO in an interview at the Viminale, the interior ministry’s palatial headquarters named after one of the seven hills of ancient Rome.
“When we said we had to relaunch the Libyan coast guard, it seemed like a daydream” — Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti
Having spent over a decade in government, as state secretary for the security services during two administrations and as deputy interior minister under Romano Prodi before that, the 61-year-old Calabrian — a former communist — was convinced from the outset that Europe’s real migration struggle was “playing out on the other side of the Mediterranean.”
“No one was really convinced that a real operation could be carried out in Libya. The idea was to intervene in neighboring countries, since the mainstream understanding was that Libya was structurally unstable, and so all efforts would end up wasted,” Minniti said.
“When we said we had to relaunch the Libyan coastguard, it seemed like a daydream. Last weekend they saved 1,180 migrants while the whole international apparatus only saved 130. In the past four years that had never occurred,” Minniti said.
Now, he wants to capitalize on Italy’s success and ask Brussels to foot the bill, after the summer break.
Sustainability
The Italian minister has three requests to Europe. The first: to allocate to Africa — and especially Libya, which currently accounts for 97 percent of departures — the same amount of “effort and resources” that it devoted last year to stemming migration flows through the Balkans.
Minniti does not expect €3 billion overnight — but he wants Europe to consider stumping up “a similar amount,” and he wants it “to happen rapidly since the mechanism is working in Libya and needs to be sustained.”
Such resources should mainly be committed to the protection of borders, both on the coast and along Libya’s southern frontier, including providing funding and training for the country’s coast guard and border guard services.
Minniti’s second request is for help tackling the problem of migrant reception centers in Libya, where he envisages increased cooperation between the EU and the United Nations. Last week, a report drafted by EU officials detailed severe shortcomings in sanitary conditions in the refugee centers in Libya.
In April the European Union allocated €90 million to Libya, with more than half the amount devoted to improving reception centers and the rest designed to boost local government and socio-economic development. Minniti wants “more money,” but most importantly he wants to see new projects launched as soon as possible.
His final request — and perhaps the biggest one — is for Europe to make a five-year commitment to invest in the mayors of the 14 main Libyan cities where migrant smuggling takes place. The best way to stabilize the country, the minister said, is to create viable economic alternatives to the business of human trafficking, which currently constitutes “the only functioning enterprises in Libya.”
Source: http://www.politico.eu/article/italy-libya-vision-migrant-flows-drop-mediterranean-sea/
