[ad_1]
ROME – When Hillary Clinton warned in an interview this week that the centrist leaders of Europe needed to "control" the issue of migration, or risk fanning the flames of populism, some were wondering where it was these days. years.
"We have already done so," said Marco Minniti, former Italian interior minister, center-left, when he was questioned about these remarks. "She's talking about another era."
Unauthorized migration to Europe has already decreased by around 90% since the peak of the refugee crisis on the continent in 2015, when more than one million asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, entered Greece and Italy. This steep drop is due in large part to the European centrist leadership.
On Friday, faced with feedback, Clinton said in a series of tweets that it was precisely a centrist approach that she advocated.
"I have always been and remain a strong advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that respects our values and treats every person with dignity," she wrote.
She criticized the detention of immigrant children by President Trump on the southern border of the United States and added: "On both sides of the Atlantic, we need reforms. No open borders, but immigration laws applied with fairness and respect for human rights. "
Right-wing populists on both sides of the Atlantic continue to use the immigration issue – and misrepresent it – in hopes of deepening their political gains. With elections to the European Parliament imminent next May, lingering fears of migration on the continent are likely to be exploited even more, analysts warn.
"The story sold by the populists is very vaguely linked to the facts," said Gerald Knaus, a migration expert who is the founding president of the European Stability Initiative, a research group based in Berlin.
While European leaders are perceived in many circles to be lax about migration, they have in fact quietly outsourced border management to countries with dismal human rights records, slowing migration flows.
As early as November 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was leading efforts to persuade the Turkish autocratic government to do more to stem the migration of Turkey to Greece, which was then Europe's main entry point. In March 2016, an agreement had been concluded Migration flow reduces almost overnight.
In July 2017, Mr. Minniti himself reduced the flow to Italy by 70% by negotiating with the Libyan militias that control the migration sector in the southern Mediterranean.
And it was Federica Mogherini, head of the chief diplomacy of the European Union, who led efforts throughout this period to put an end to migratory flows across the Saharan countries, concluding disputed agreements with the country. Sudan and Niger.
Behind the scenes, the Obama administration has encouraged Europe's uncompromising approach in meetings with Merkel and her Roman counterpart Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister of the day.
After Merkel initially welcomed the newcomers, Obama told him in late 2015 that if she did not take a firmer but necessary stance, she and the European Union would come out of it.
"Angela, it has to be real or it's over," Obama said, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who added that Merkel had replied, "Barack, I can not believe I'm dead. # 39; agreement. with you."
In October 2016, Obama sent a similar message to Mr Renzi, who has become a liberal model in Europe for his humanitarian approach to migrants.
At a meeting in the White House in October 2016, Obama told him "there must be a limit" to the numbers he has collected, according to a person who was present at the meeting.
A spokesman for Obama declined to comment.
Yet, in practice, Merkel and Renzi and their centrist counterparts had little need to be encouraged.
Minniti and others familiar with meetings between Obama and European leaders at the height of the migrant crisis said the United States has been slow to understand the huge political catalyst that massive migration from from Libya to Europe had provoked.
For example, Renzi has consistently called on Obama and other leaders to pay more attention to Libya as a potential starting point for migrants. But he was ignored.
Minniti said, "At the time, the problem was underestimated in Europe and the United States."
Starting in 2017, Italy has put in place a strategy recognizing that a large country with a huge coastline could not eliminate migration, but would govern it.
The Italian government did this by fighting human traffickers, entering into agreements with powerful militias in Libya, creating humanitarian corridors for asylum seekers and offering financial incentives to economic migrants who wanted to return home.
In this context, Clinton's remarks are "a little surprising," said Matteo Villa, a specialist in migration at the Italian Institute for International Policy Studies, a research group based in Rome. "Europe is already tough."
But centrist leaders have failed to communicate the effectiveness of their approach. Minniti said the challenge facing the left was to brag about his accomplishments.
But it's easier said than done. Politicians still risk being seen as both too weak for the far right and, on the contrary, too harsh for leftists horrified by the lack of support from their leaders for migrants stranded in dangerous conditions in Libya and Greece.
"The absence of clear and credible centrist policies – policies understandable by the public and combining control and empathy for those in need of protection – makes the work of the demagogues too easy", said Mr. Knaus.
However, rigid migration policy and rhetoric in Europe have had a mixed impact on the ballot box so far. Recent polls across the continent suggest that Europeans' concern over immigration has returned to pre-crisis levels.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has partly maintained his popularity by giving the impression that his party alone can defend the Hungarians against the threat of migration, even if the migration to his country has been slow. reduced to a relative net.
Conversely, in Italy, effective measures taken by Mr. Minniti to fight against migration were not enough to prevent his left-of-center party from losing its position in a general election earlier this year.
"We arrived too late," said Minniti.
In last March's elections, the populist parties managed to maintain the impression of a persistent crisis, despite the sharp drop in the number of arrivals.
Minniti has been replaced in the Ministry of the Interior by far-right Matteo Salvini, who has always made headlines for obstructing the work of humanitarian rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, but whose The stated purpose of ending immigration to Italy had already been largely achieved by the time Mr Minniti left office.
In Germany, migration had a similar mixed effect on election results.
Frustration over Merkel's perceived generosity towards migrants first helped to build support for the Alternative to Immigrants for Germany (AfD) option.
Yet when Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and her Bavarian brother party opposed the right in two local elections this fall, the center-right party ended up losing more votes because of the Green Party. pro-refugee only from AfD. And in Berlin, polls published this week suggest that the Greens are now the most popular party in the capital.
In Greece and Spain, the two European countries currently facing the most important migratory flows, the far-right parties are currently questioning less than 10%.
Yet in Poland, which was virtually untouched by the 2015 migration flows, a far-right party was elected two years ago, capitalizing on another set of concerns.
In this complex context, Clinton's remarks did not attract the same interest for Europe as for America.
Few politicians of all stripes reacted strongly to Mrs. Clinton's remarks, even in Hungary, where the government has historically benefited from similar statements by centrist figures to justify their policies.
"It does not make much difference," said Gyorgy Schopflin, Member of the European Parliament of Fidesz's party Orban, during a phone interview. "Whether his conversion is sincere or tactical, I do not know it. I am skeptical. "
[ad_2]Source link
