In a bid to stem the unprecedented wave of refugees putting to sea to reach Italy's southern coasts, Italian Interior Minister Maroni and his Tunisian colleague Habib Essid signed a bilateral cooperation treaty on Tuesday. A key member of the separatist, xenophobic party the Northern League, Interior Minister Maroni welcomed the agreement as “the beginning of a crucial collaboration program.” It will finally allow Italy to “close the tap” of illegal immigration, he added. Tunisian Interior Minister Habib Essid took up his position a few days ago, after interim Prime Minister Fouad Mebazaa sacked former Minister Farhat Rajhi without apparent reasons. The two agreed upon a few points: migrants will be provided with a temporary three-month permit to travel inside the EU – this will be negated to migrants landing tomorrow; Italy will provide Tunisia with a number of motorboats and jeeps to enforce border police; expatriation bureaucracy will be consistently eased. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini declared on Tuesday that Italy will help the Tunisian provisional government by providing “a microcredit line of €150 million to help young people develop small, artisan, commercial activities that can help alleviate the burden of unemployment.” Since Tunisian former President Ezzine Ben Ali was ousted in 14 January, an exceptional wave of migrants has taken advantage of the lack of border police control, and crossed the Mediterranean. Unofficial esteems report roughly 20 thousands Tunisian put to sea since Tunisian revolution broke out, most of them landing on the small Italian island of Lampedusa. A ministerial decree sanctioned that Italian security forces start deporting refugees from the Lampedusa to detention centres in every other Italian region, late March. The island is now hosting more than 6 thousands North African and Sub-Saharian immigrants, more than the amount of its actual inhabitants. Prior to that, the highest record of sea crossings had been recorded in 2008, when no more than 30 thousands refugees made it to Italy throughout the year. “Choosing restrictive policies leads to an increase in security controls to the detriment of integration,” Senior Researcher at the Lugano University Paolo Ruspini told Bikya Masr. “Such measures by any means resolve this problem at the roots.” “A genuine policy towards illegal immigration starts from contributing to the establishment of regulatory bodies on labor markets and informal economies in the migrants' country of destination,” he added. According to the 2008/2009 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, Tunisia ranks first in Africa and 36th globally for economic competitiveness, over countries like Portugal, Italy and Greece. But high rates of unemployment increased by 200 percent to 30 percent of the population in the last three years. This alone makes migration to Europe loom as an attractive strategy to find a better job and better future for many young men. As more then half of Tunisian workforce is employed in public services, Ben Ali's ouster and the consequent fall in Tourism revenues heightened financial crisis and sharpened distress in the lower classes. AMREF's Spokesman Simone Ramella joined a call to intervene at the core of the problem. “We can raise thousands of barriers, but no wall will stand against the flux of migrants crossing the Mediterranean,” he told Bikya Masr. Enforcing border control and allowing quick, mass expatriation of refugees is not an answer to the humanitarian emergency, but only amounts to a temporary, inefficient measure. International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo half-heartedly welcomed the measure that allows migrants to a three-month EU permit. “At least it provides them with a legal status. Being “irregular” means that they cannot find a job and they cannot travel; they cannot stay and cannot go away. So they are stuck into a limbo, the only ways out of which are forced expatriation or prison.” “This also gives us a means to ascertain who has the right to stay as a refugee and who has not,” declared Oxfam Italy's President Francesco Petrelli, underlining that the weakest point of the agreement concerns the expatriation of those considered illegal. “There are reasons to doubt that Tunisian institutions, wrecked by a recent revolution, will be able to actively collaborate and welcome returning refugees with quick and comprehensive maneuvers.” “We should not forget that Tunisia is hosting 200 thousands refugees, the majority of them almost certainly from war zones, and therefore entitled to refugee status,” added Petrelli. This is probably one more reason to disagree with any temporary measure opposing the flow of refugees, as there are still tens of thousands to come. “It would be better to organize a humanitarian mission” focused on Mediterranean refugees, added Petrelli, blaming the situation on the Italian Foreign Ministry, who reportedly “almost canceled” Italian funding to international cooperation. Italy has long been calling the EU for more collaboration on immigration issues. As a consequence of the almost complete lack of systematic measures to organize the flow of migrants in the country, the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants living in Italy have become subjects of a xenophobic political discourse. This increased consent around the exclusive policies emanated by Berlusconi center-right winged government coalition, notwithstanding the magnate's seven different pending charges, involving association with criminal organizations, corruption and instigation of child prostitution. It is unlikely though that most of those recently arrived in Lampedusa will settle down in the country. “They all want to travel to France or Germany. They look forward to joining their friends and families there, and have no reasons to stay in Italy,” said Di Giacomo. This fact might be at the root of the EU's decision to allow Italy to provide them with temporary permits, it is though far from being a step towards a systematic and concerted collaboration between border countries like Italy, Greece and Spain with the rest of the European Member States. In related news, a boat transporting an uncertain number of Libyan refugees capsized on Wednesday not far from Lampedusa. As Italian rescue forces currently carry out search for survivors, an estimated number of 250 are missing. 48 refugees have been rescued so far. BM
