In the first seven months of 2024, migrant arrivals on Italian coasts dropped by 62.36 percent compared to the previous year, with a boom in landings in Spain instead, where migratory flows increased by a whopping 153 percent. These are the data reeled off with ill-concealed pride by the Italian government in its latest dossier on the activities of the Ministry of the Interior, published on August 15th. A report that, paradoxically, could somehow ‘force’ Giorgia Meloni’s government to open the door to excess asylum seekers coming from Spain.
The New Pact on Migrants
Everything revolves around the agreements already in force in Brussels and the new EU Pact on Migrants, definitively approved a few months ago. The new rules, supported by the Italian government, but not by the entire majority (Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia voted for it in the European Parliament, while the League was against it), provide for the so-called “solidarity mechanism”: in the event of a migration crisis, the EU country hit by the crisis will be able to activate a sort of emergency button according to which, subject to approval from Brussels, the other member states will be obliged to provide their help. The support can take place in two ways: either by taking on the responsibility of welcoming a portion of the asylum seekers from the country in crisis, or by contributing from their own pockets to the costs of managing the flows.
Spain on the brink of crisis
Now, Spain seems to be on the brink of a migration emergency. The latest data from the Ministry of the Interior in Madrid speak clearly: from the beginning of the year to August 15, over 31 thousand migrants have landed in the country, almost double the 18 thousand in the same period in 2023. The biggest problem concerns the West African route that leads from Mauritania, Gambia and Senegal to the Canary Islands: here, as many as 30,000 migrants have arrived. 22,304 migrants since the beginning of 2024, compared to 9,864 in the first seven and a half months of last year. The president of the regional government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has raised a new alarm in recent days, claiming that “more than 150,000 refugees” are ready to set sail to reach his archipelago from Mauritania. If this alarm were to turn into a further increase in flows, Spain could find itself at the end of the year with a new record of landings after the one registered in 2023. And surpass Italy in the number of illegal migrants.
The double game of the Iberian right
To deal with the emergency, the government of Socialist Pedro Sanchez is trying first of all to stir up internal solidarity: the Canary Islands can take in a maximum of 2,000 migrants. According to Spanish law, the central government has the power to redistribute adult asylum seekers to other regions of the country, but not minors, whose transfer must be accepted by the regional authorities, who, however, are putting up a wall. The majority has tried to change the rules, but the right-wing opposition parties, the moderates of the PP and the nationalists of Vox, have blocked this attempt.
Italy’s solidarity
In return, the PP took up pen and paper and wrote to the European Commission asking, among other things, that “the EU’s solidarity with the Canary Islands and Spain be expressed in an urgent relocation program” at least for unaccompanied minors. The request does not directly concern the new Pact on Migrants, whose technical implementation times are incompatible with the emergency situation (EU countries have two years to fully introduce the new rules). If anything, the PP points to the voluntary solidarity mechanism already set up some time ago in Brussels. And of which Italy is part together with Spain. If the Commission were to follow up on the appeal of the Iberian center-right, it is unlikely that Rome, which has always been at the forefront in asking for the relocation of its migrants to other EU countries, could look the other way. Also because, any refusal of solidarity could turn into an own goal for Italy in view of the definitive entry into force of the new Pact on Migrants. And in the event of a new wave of landings on our shores that the winds of war in the Middle East are making increasingly likely.
