On February 26, bodies began washing up on Italy’s southern shore near Crotone, Calabria—at least 81 dead, including 32 children, in one of the worst migrant shipwrecks the Mediterranean has seen in the past decade. Protesters marched on the streets of Crotone accusing Italy’s conservative government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of neglecting the lives of migrants seeking asylum.
Liberals in the West accused Meloni of fascism before she was even elected. She has proven them wrong. Her government has supported Ukraine, voiced support for Taiwan, passed an EU-friendly budget, arrested Italy’s most-wanted mafia boss, and sealed an $8 billion gas production deal with Libya to improve Italian energy security, among other achievements. Her effectiveness shows, and recent polling data reveal that she is the most respected leader in Europe. If Meloni truly is a fascist, she is hiding it well.
Notwithstanding Meloni’s frequent agreement with her EU counterparts, her government stands firmly opposed to left-wing EU orthodoxy on the migration crisis. Italy wishes to defend its borders from the tens of thousands of migrants, mostly departing from Libya, arriving at its shores each year. EU and international law dictate that “asylum seekers” traveling by sea must be accepted at the closest safe port. For migrants sailing the Mediterranean Sea towards Europe, the closest ports are in southern Italy. Four months ago, Meloni was questioned about her government’s refusal to dock the charity-run ship Ocean Viking carrying more than 200 migrants. In her response, Meloni asked Europe an important question: “should Italy be, by choice, the only possible port of disembarkation for migrants arriving from Africa? I think this doesn’t seem right.”
In reality, migrants suffer more when Italy fails to defend its borders. The UN recorded 5,136 deaths and disappearances in 2016 under a left-of-center Italian government. In contrast, 2,337 were recorded in 2018 when conservative Matteo Salvini became interior minister and instituted the “Salvini decrees,” which made seeking asylum in Italy more difficult. Salvini’s strict immigration policies removed the incentive for migrants to set sail in the first place, potentially saving thousands of lives that otherwise would have been lost in treacherous ocean crossings. These policies prevent tragedies like that in Calabria.
Beyond deaths at sea, migrants and Italians alike suffer from heavy immigration flows.
Asylum seekers often become victims of the mafia. The Italian mafia cooperates with crime groups in Africa and Eastern Europe to ensure the safe arrival of migrants, only to force them into prostitution and the drug trade. Organized crime controls 9 percent of the Italian economy, infiltrating vital supply chains—including the northern industrial base—and weakening production capacity. Unchecked immigration helps line the pockets of global crime networks and weakens Italian industry.
Tiziana FABI / AFP/Getty Images
Migrants also exacerbate Italy’s fiscal crisis. High unemployment and slow growth plague the heavily indebted Italian economy. To make matters worse, the Constitutional Court of Italy recently ruled that the government cannot deny access to social services based on nationality and, in some regions, based on length of residence. The migration crisis only accelerates the ongoing deterioration of Italy’s welfare state.
A weak Italy is not in the interests of the EU. Italy plays a disproportionately large role in European security. It patrols the Mediterranean with the Cavour aircraft carrier and a fleet of F-35s, and recently launched bilateral defense initiatives with Lebanon, Libya, and Niger. Italy is the second-largest contributor to NATO‘s out-of-area operations. It also possesses a world-class defense industrial base.
But Italy cannot sustain this strong presence abroad with vulnerable supply chains, massive public debt, and diminishing morale. The migration crisis is sapping away Italy’s will and ability to lead, and unless the EU changes course, the alliance will continue to fray.
EU policy fails to address the crisis effectively. On paper, the EU’s “solidarity mechanism” means member nations are supposed to share the burden of migration. But only 164 out of more than 88,000 migrants were moved from Italy in 2022 before the Ocean Viking scandal. While most migrants extralegally move northward to more established migrant communities in France, Germany, and Sweden, Italy nonetheless bears the initial burden. Meloni wants to stop migration at the source. Hence, against the wishes of the EU, she provided boats to Libya to intercept migrant ships and return them home.
Meloni’s efforts face heavy criticism. The human rights commissioner of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović, criticized Meloni and called for Europe to accept all asylum seekers. Some accused Meloni of racism. France even sent hundreds of officers to its border with Italy to prevent migrants from entering France and rescinded an offer to take 3,500 migrants currently in Italy; in other words, France criticized Italy for securing its borders and punished migrants in the process.
Meloni should continue to stand firm. Brussels is out of touch with democratic people’s movements, such as the one led by Meloni, across EU member states. The Italian prime minister may yet succeed—Meloni and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke over the phone about, among other things, the migration crisis in anticipation of last week’s European Council Summit. Perhaps there is hope. More European leaders should follow Meloni’s example and work to secure their borders, restore security, and above all honor the will of their peoples.
Luca Frumento is Operations Assistant at the Hudson Institute. He was previously a 2022 summer fellow in Hudson Institute Political Studies.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
