Government policy and the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and African arenas

As in previous years, so too in 2018 the migration question dominated the Italian political debate. The new ruling coalition announced a policy change based on the intransigent protection of maritime borders. Against the background of a decline in the number of migrants reaching Italy’s shores, the year saw the imposition of increasingly tight restrictions on the activities of the NGOs involved in search-and-rescue operations along the central Mediterranean route. The closure of Italy’s ports, besides having obvious humanitarian implications, led to the displacement of migration flows, with repercussions for other Mediterranean countries. At the same time, the thousands of repatriations that were promised by the Lega (League) during the election campaign did not materialise. Rather than focussing on the government’s strategy in the domestic sphere, this article examines the continuities and discontinuities in the policy of Italy’s new government concerning the international dimension of the migration question, and it does so by focussing on the Mediterranean and African arenas. Upon closer scrutiny, the new government coalition built its policy on already existing trends, beginning with restrictions on search-and-rescue activities at sea, and a higher-profile role for the interior minister (the League’s Matteo Salvini) in issues that had once fallen within the remit of the foreign ministry. At the same time, the choice in favour of unilateral intransigence and the display of open hostility vis-à-vis Western European governments, together with the refusal by the Visegrad countries to accommodate requests coming from Rome, were reflected in Italy’s growing isolation in Europe.