The discourse of Giorgia Meloni on the crossing of EU’s external borders

On Sunday 25^th of October, Italians have been called to elect their new government. Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), the far-right wing party, won the election with 26,24% of the votes and Giorgia Meloni began the first woman prime minister of Italy.

Meloni’s political philosophy

Meloni’s political philosophy draws its origins from the fascist movement. It is so characterised by a strong conservative and nationalist tendency. An example of this is the very well-known Meloni’s speech  in which she defended Christianity and family rejecting homosexual adoption. These are just some of the FdI political agenda’s topic along with migration. Starting from the 2000’, migration became part of the public debate, the discussion around this topic increased from the so-called European migration crises that started in 2015. In Italy populist parties such as FdI or la Lega instrumentalized this theme in order to gain popularity. Both FdI and la Lega approach the subject through the prism of public security, both parties affirmed that migration is an economic, cultural danger and that it increases criminality. Both Meloni and Salvini want to strongly limit illegal migration, by reducing the arrivals of undocumented migrants in Italy. If the leader of la Lega in 2018 established the closure of Italian ports, Meloni wants to go further. Her main proposition is to impose a naval blockade to Libya, country from where most of the immigrants, who undertaken the Mediterranean route, depart. But concretely what is a naval blockade? Could Italy impose it to Libya? How?

What is a naval blockade?

A naval blockade is a military measure implemented from a country in order to arrest the circulation of any boat coming from the hostile country. This measure is strictly regulated by the articles 41 and 42 of the UN Charter. In particular, these articles claim that a blockade can be enacted only in case of military attack by the attacked country. According to that, Italy could not implement such a measure, but a precedent exists.

History shows us that in 1997, Italy established a naval blockade to Albania, in order to stop the massif arrival of Albanian in Italy, this decision brought to the tragedy of Katër i Radës. The implementation of a naval blockade was possible by the ratification of a bilateral agreement (Protocollo Italia Albania 25^th March 1997).

In the same way, the Italian government should (and probably will) ratifies a bilateral agreement with Libya as already done with Albania. It is important to remind that Italy and Libya have already ratified two agreements in the same optic: the first one (Trattato Italia-Libia di amicizia, partenariato e cooperazione), was ratified in 2008, and the second (Memorandum d’intesa bilaterale ) ratified in 2017. The aim of these agreement is to limit illegal migration, by financing Libyan guard cost.

Meloni pretends an EU intervention, Libya is likely to become a new Turkey.