How Italy is planning to solve the migrant crisis
Introducing a new proposal that should be discussed in Bruxelles
It is a matter of fact that migrants flows to Italy and Europe will not stop anytime soon. All these people come from unstable areas of conflicts and the only hope they have is to have the chance of starting a new life somewhere else in the world. However, in order to keep on both saving lives and managing the massive influxes of arrivals, Italy is planning to screen new migrants on what it calls new "floating hot-spots", that is specific boats to be used to process migrants applications faster and to identify migrants who are not eligible of international protection before they land on European soil.
Despite looking very practical and efficient, Admiral Fabio Caffio explains that the Italian proposal has been criticised for not being able to guarantee a proper "place of safety" to migrants. Indeed, no matter how big the ship in which they will be processed will be, it is not clear if they will be able to guarantee the respect of basic human needs for migrants, considering that these boats will be populated by men, women, and minors. This will give migrants the chance to sue Italy through the European Court of Human Rights, while no responsibilities will ever be attributed to any other European country.
At the same time, while European countries are always ready to accuse Italy of creating a strong "pull factor" for migrants with their dedication in rescuing them, support in handling the crisis remain very limited and discontinued.
However, the negative consequences of short-sightedness in which this issue has always been approached will soon emerge in the whole Europe. It is not the way in which rescuing and asylum processing processes are handled that is going to stop migrants from risking their life to reach Europe. A coordinated approach is needed to create new incentives for them to stay in their own countries. But these incentives will prove appealing only when migrants countries of origins will be safe. So European priorities at the moment should be stabilising the regions in which potential migrants are living, and cooperate on a European strategy to welcome them at home.
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