Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni discusses Italy’s relations with China and the conservative movement’s growing influence in Europe.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called on the European Union to create a naval blockade in the Mediterranean Sea aimed at blocking the flow of migrants, arguing the "future of Europe" is at stake.
"What is at stake is the future of Europe because the future of Europe depends on its capacity to deal with the huge challenges of our time," Meloni told reporters over the weekend, according to a report from The Telegraph.
The prime minister's comments come after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's weekend visit to Lampedusa, a small Italian island that has become one of the hot spots of Europe's migrant crisis. More than 10,000 migrants arrived at the island just north of Africa last week, according to the report, far surpassing the permanent population of 6,000.
Meloni argued the only "serious" way for Europe to get a grip on the crisis was for a blockade, stopping the migrants from being able to depart North African countries on boats bound for Europe.
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A naval blockade won't do much, as European naval vessels, when they interdict a boat full of migrants heading across the sea, typically escort it to the nearest safe European port (unless we are talking about the French, who escort it towards British waters). A blockade is only effective with the implied threat of the use of force, which is not going to be the case. Instead, naval vessels are merely beacons of safety for migrants crossing the sea. We used to think that sea borders were good protection, but a sea border provides no defence on its own.
After the joint US-European conquest of Libya in 2011, which I was heavily opposed to at the time, Europe could not even exploit the situation to create a landing area in Libya to take back all migrants caught crossing the Mediterranean, but instead created arrangements to bring them all into Europe, which was a catastrophic mistake of existential proportions.
Unless, and until, every migrant attempting to cross the Mediterranean is taken back to the African coast as a matter of course, this crisis is only going to worsen. This situation is the joint legacy of David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Barack Obama, and it served to compound the problems created by the stupid Iraq and Afghanistan wars that were the legacy of Bush and Blair.