Meloni at Rome Med 2022. Over the weekend, the Italian Prime Minister took part in the leading conference on the Mediterranean – ISPI’s Mediterranean Dialogues, a yearly appointment attracting international heavyweights and offering a platform to discuss all things Med, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Below are a few key takeaways from PM Meloni’s speech. The full translation is further down.
On Italy’s role in the Med. “Italy is strongly committed, with this government, to strengthening its role in the Mediterranean. Basically, we are aware that only by creating a space of stability and shared prosperity will we be able to effectively cross the epochal challenges we are experiencing, from food security to health, [as well as] climate change.”
- “We are aware that a solid ‘geopolitics of dialogue’ can only build and consolidate in the area by moving from an awareness of our cultural identities, our value identities, the realisation that our prosperity is not possible without that of our neighbours.”
On Russia. “As the Italian government, we are committed to promoting an active dialogue with all the countries of the wider Mediterranean, in a frank but articulate manner both bilaterally and at EU and NATO level. The Russian aggression against Ukraine constitutes, in light of its dramatic human, social and economic costs, a clear watershed. It makes it irreversibly clear that to talk about security today – and, above all, to achieve it – it is necessary to [embrace] an extended meaning of the concept of security, which includes political solutions, institutional consolidation, civil reconstruction, as well as actions to safeguard the human, cultural, environmental, energy and food dimensions to an equally profound extent.”
On Libya. “The full and lasting stabilisation of Libya certainly represents one of the most urgent and delicate priorities of foreign policy and national security, not least because of the impacts that protracted instability in Libya is also likely to have in terms of migratory flows and the security of energy supplies for the whole of Europe. [W]e would like to renew our invitation to Libyan political actors to commit themselves to provide the country with solid and democratically legitimised institutions. It will then also be possible to finalise the process of withdrawing mercenaries and foreign fighters from the country. Only a Libyan-led process with the support of the United Nations can lead to a full and lasting solution to the crisis in the country.”
On migration, “which is a structural and global phenomenon, whose dynamics in the Mediterranean often originate in more distant places, starting with the Sahel, where, not by chance, diplomatic and military presence and cooperation with our partners has increased significantly.”
- “[W]e need more Europe on the ‘southern front’, as Italy has been claiming for some time and as it has claimed particularly recently. Because we cannot manage by ourselves a flow that has now assumed unmanageable dimensions. Europe urgently needs to create a framework of multilateral cooperation based on legal flows and incisive action to prevent and combat irregular flows, which must also include an indispensable element, the Europeanisation of repatriation management. With over 94 thousand arrivals since the beginning of this year, Italy – along with other countries of first entry – is bearing the heaviest burden in protecting European borders against human trafficking in the Mediterranean.”
On the EU, energy, and the green transition. “Europe must be a two-way partnership, aimed at facilitating the exchange of energy sources, but also at encouraging decarbonised energy production and green transition throughout the Mediterranean region. It is necessary to give a strong signal that the centre of gravity of European energy trade is shifting towards the Mediterranean. And Italy wants to and can play a prominent role in this strategy. And European funding will be fundamental in this.”
- “Italy is and can be much more a natural hinge and energy bridge between the Mediterranean and Europe. This is one of the great strategic challenges that this government would like to pursue and on which we are working by virtue of our special geographical position, our infrastructure, our cooperative projection, and the valuable contribution of our companies. We boast a rich diversification of both routes – gas and electricity pipelines – and sources. A factor that, now more than ever, represents a crucial value for common security, energy resilience and the development of ever closer relations.”
Here’s the full, translated speech.
First of all, I would like to thank the ministers, the authorities, and the many international guests who have gathered here. I obviously want to thank Minister Tajani, Deputy Minister Cirielli, and Ambassador Massolo for their hospitality at this event – which I couldn’t have failed to attend. And I will try to explain why I could not leave without congratulating the [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] and ISPI for the themes chosen for this edition of the Dialogues on the Mediterranean in Rome.
We are now at the eighth edition of this event, a continuity that demonstrates how important dialogue and reflection are for Italy, which – as the leitmotif of this edition also shows – always focuses fundamentally on three concepts: interdependence, resilience, and cooperation.
I’ll start from the words of Minister Tajani: Italy is strongly committed, with this government, to strengthening its role in the Mediterranean.
Basically, we are aware that only by creating a space of stability and shared prosperity will we be able to effectively cross the epochal challenges we are experiencing, from food security to health, [as well as] climate change.
Italy has always been a promoter of an inclusive and constructive approach to these challenges: this is why we have welcomed the European Union’s adoption of the “New Agenda for the Mediterranean” which, combined with adequate financial commitments, can in our view relaunch the partnership, stimulating a fairer, more sustainable recovery that is more attentive to people’s needs.
We must tell ourselves that, if we want, Italy has been a forerunner of this strategy, as this conference – which is not an episodic event, but a central piece of a much more complex strategy, of a mosaic of Italian action for the promotion of a positive agenda in the wider Mediterranean – demonstrates very well.
The Dialogues on the Mediterranean in Rome are intended to help strengthen regional cooperation mechanisms and mobilise the commitment of our partners towards an area that is central, not only to Italy’s interests but to common strategic interests. Dialogue on the challenges of the Mediterranean is obviously a valuable and indispensable opportunity. To be able to do so here in Rome, in the heart of the basin where Europe, Africa and Asia meet, is for us a source of pride but, at the same time, the assumption of great responsibility. This is the reason why I wanted to be present at this edition.
We are aware that a solid “geopolitics of dialogue” can only build and consolidate in the area by starting from an awareness of our cultural identities and our value identities, the realisation that our prosperity is not possible without that of our neighbours.
For this reason, when the new government took office, I spoke of the need for Italy to promote a “Mattei plan” for Africa. That is, a virtuous model of collaboration and growth between the European Union and African nations. Taking an example from a great Italian like Enrico Mattei, the approach must not have a predatory posture towards African nations, but rather a collaborative one, respectful of mutual interests as previously mentioned, based on a development that knows how to enhance the identities and potential of each.
I very much appreciated Ambassador Massolo’s words when he spoke of nations as “the subject and not the object of cooperation”. I absolutely agree. And this is an approach that Italy can boast and must foster on behalf of all the other actors for which we can be a leading nation. [Roughly, this is] the role this government would like to give our nation.
In our view, such an approach also allows for countering the worrying spread of Islamist radicalism, especially in the sub-Saharan area, more effectively. The recent days’ dialogues have indeed highlighted many critical issues but also surprising opportunities. In some ways, fate challenges us with crises, but in doing so, it also puts us to the test; it tests our wits, and our capacity to react. This is something that Enrico Mattei himself taught us, [when he] said, “ingenuity is seeing possibilities where others do not see any.”
So if, for example, climate change causes desertification – and thus further impoverishment and destabilisation – on the other hand, there are, paradoxically, opportunities offered by increasingly desert territories, which are also rich in water and thus need technologies to exploit that water, as the President of Niger pointed out so well. Here, we must be ready to meet these challenges all together. To understand how the more difficult the challenge becomes, the more our approach must be to raise the bar. That is why we need such comparisons.
There are many challenges. One of the main ones, also addressed by the Dialogues on the Mediterranean, is that of migration: which is a structural and global phenomenon whose dynamics in the Mediterranean often originate in more distant places, starting with the Sahel, where, not by chance, diplomatic and military presence and cooperation with our partners has increased significantly.
I want to thank the Presidents of the Republic of Mauritania and Niger, who have enriched the debate of these days with their participation. The Mediterranean needs to be perceived primarily as a community of destiny, a meeting point between national identities, and not, as too often happens, a place of death caused by human traffickers.
And so we need more Europe; we need more Europe on the “southern front”, as Italy has been claiming for some time and as it has claimed particularly recently. Because we cannot manage by ourselves a flow that has now assumed unmanageable dimensions. Europe urgently needs to create a framework of multilateral cooperation based on legal flows and on incisive action to prevent and combat irregular flows, which must also include an indispensable element, that is, the Europeanisation of repatriation management. With over 94 thousand arrivals since the beginning of this year, Italy – along with other countries of first entry – is bearing the heaviest burden in protecting European borders against human trafficking in the Mediterranean.
Recently, for the first time, the central Mediterranean route was considered a priority in a European Commission document. I consider this a victory. It had never happened and probably would not have happened if Italy had not raised two questions: respect for international legality and the need to tackle the phenomenon of migration at a structural level.
Faced with a phenomenon of the magnitude we are experiencing, which involves both countries of origin and transit and countries of destination, we need a serious and concrete commitment from everyone. A common commitment. The states of the European Union on the one hand, and the states of the southern shore of the Mediterranean on the other. This is why we ask the EU to relaunch an effective implementation of the commitments made too long ago through migration cooperation with our African and Mediterranean partners, who must be more involved in preventing and combating human trafficking.
We are witnessing the definition of new conflict scenarios, of new patterns of alliances. As the Italian government, we are committed to promoting an active dialogue with all the countries of the wider Mediterranean in a frank but articulate manner, both bilaterally and at the EU and NATO levels. The Russian aggression against Ukraine constitutes, in light of its dramatic human, social and economic costs, a clear watershed. It makes it irreversibly clear that to talk about security today – and above all to achieve it – it is necessary to have recourse to an extended meaning of the concept of security, which, yes, includes political solutions, institutional consolidation and civil reconstruction, [as well as[ actions to safeguard the human, cultural, environmental, energy and food dimensions to an equally profound extent.
It is no coincidence that we speak of human security, which means protecting our communities from extremist attacks, it means defending our territory from climate change, but it also means a third aspect that has not been sufficiently considered so far, namely the protection of cultural heritage. It is no coincidence that Italy is on the front line to protect, in every nation, the legacy left by previous generations, without which there can be no wealth for future generations, and this is particularly true for the wider Mediterranean. Because, as Paul Valéry wrote, “never before and nowhere in the world has such a ferment of spirits, such a production of wealth, been observed in such a restricted area and in such a short interval of time.”
Security is what unites us, not what divides us. Because security is ultimately the “enabling” condition, the precondition for the economic and social development of nations, the promotion and protection of human rights, and the affirmation and consolidation of democratic institutions. Everything starts from here. Italy’s posture towards the importance and stability and security in the Mediterranean is based on this awareness. These are national interests, to be sure, but on closer inspection, they are European interests that define the strategic depth of our foreign policy.
The full and lasting stabilisation of Libya certainly represents one of the most urgent and delicate priorities of foreign policy and national security, not least because of the impacts that protracted instability in Libya is also likely to have in terms of migratory flows and the security of energy supplies for the whole of Europe. From here, we would like to renew our invitation to Libyan political actors to commit themselves to provide the country with solid and democratically legitimised institutions. It will then also be possible to finalise the process of withdrawing mercenaries and foreign fighters from the country. Only a Libyan-led process with the support of the United Nations can lead to a full and lasting solution to the crisis in the country.
Italy also continues to support the need for closer cooperation between the Maghreb countries to create conditions for development and stability. We need to overcome the current state of emergency in Tunisia as soon as possible and identify a clear and shared political path that can allow the re-establishment of the functionality of the institutions – starting with the Parliament – and the management of urgent economic and social needs. Italy has been and remains close to Tunisia.
We support with conviction the maritime delimitation agreement between Israel and Lebanon, which demonstrates how the joint exploitation of energy resources can and must also be a driver of economic growth and development for the entire region in the eastern Mediterranean.
We look closely at the process of normalising relations between Israel and the Arab world and the need to re-internalise the peace process in order to achieve a two-State solution that is viable, fair and directly negotiated between the parties.
After years of polarisation, we are watching with interest the new cooperative dynamics in the Gulf, and our commitment in Iraq remains relevant, where we are contributing to the process of gradual expansion of the NATO mission (NMI), whose command we have been providing since last May, in full respect of Iraqi sovereignty and in close cooperation with the Baghdad authorities.
One of the main objectives of Italian action in the Euro-Mediterranean region is to develop the southern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy, transforming it into a true “Mediterranean Partnership” that does not end with crisis management and is not limited to bilateral relations between the EU and individual countries on the southern shore.
Italy is and can be much more a natural hinge and energy bridge between the Mediterranean and Europe. This is one of the significant strategic challenges that this government would like to pursue and on which we are working by virtue of our special geographical position, our infrastructure, our cooperative projection, and the valuable contribution of our companies. We boast a rich diversification of both routes – gas and electricity pipelines – and sources. A factor that, now more than ever, represents a crucial value for common security, energy resilience and the development of eve- closer relations.
Our strategic partnership with Algeria, in particular, has enabled us in recent months to act quickly to reduce our dependence on Russian natural gas. The wider Mediterranean is the pillar of Italian energy security: around 45% of Italy’s natural gas imports come from it. Today we reach almost 60% with Azeri supplies via TAP through Turkey, Greece and Albania. Enormous is the area’s potential and the contribution it can make to European energy security in this phase of the crisis, not only with regard to natural gas but also to the development and exchange of new sustainable, affordable and accessible energies. It is correct that the projection, that the ambition of so many African nations should be to be protagonists in the ecological transition and in matters of energy security.
And precisely because we are aware of this, the Italian country-system is active in almost every country in the region in the rapid development of renewable energy, technological advancement, digital infrastructure and smart grids.
Europe is set to be one of the very first import markets for green hydrogen. We were talking about this a few days ago with the President of Mauritania. We have the opportunity to produce it in the wider Mediterranean and trade it at competitive prices. So energy is indeed a national good, but it is also an inclusive good, and therefore it is a common good. And so it is a subject on which cooperation becomes cooperation for the good and the growth of all the nations involved.
The EU must create partnerships based on investment and a technology chain. There is a big open European question on supply chains that we have posed many times. Because Italy has ended up controlling almost nothing. We realised this when the recent years’ shocks came about. Today we realise it with regard to energy, yesterday with the pandemic, with regard to chips and semiconductors. But at some point, Europe stretched its supply chains so far that it can hardly control anything anymore. Today the great challenge is to be masters of one’s own destiny by working on national chains, on European chains, but also on friend-shoring and also on near-shoring, i.e. on supply chains linked to neighbouring nations. This is a challenge linked, as far as we are concerned, to the Mediterranean issue.
Europe must be a two-way partnership, aimed at facilitating the exchange of energy sources, but also at encouraging decarbonised energy production and green transition throughout the Mediterranean region. It is necessary to give a strong signal that the centre of gravity of European energy trade is shifting towards the Mediterranean. And Italy wants to and can play a prominent role in this strategy. And European funding will be fundamental in this.
Digital transition and its spin-offs in terms of innovation are other important catalysts for the modernisation of the entire region. Its integration and sustainable growth must be fostered. Digitalisation can enable companies on both sides of the border to increase their competitiveness and integrate the value chain. The creation of cyberspace remains one of the greatest sources of opportunities for companies and the international system. In line with the priorities that the EU assigns to the digital transition, also in terms of external action, Italy, with its cooperation strategy, promotes the dissemination of digitalisation in multiple sectors of intervention; I am thinking of socio-economic development, institutional governance, health, education, vocational training, sustainable tourism and the enhancement of cultural heritage.
In an area as complex and subject to constant challenges and change as the Mediterranean, women and young people can play a fundamental role in building more cohesive and resilient societies. They need to be allowed to harness their vision and energy, making them protagonists of their own future and that of their societies, fully guaranteeing their rights and fighting against all forms of violence and discrimination. We cannot pretend not to see what is happening to the women and young people demonstrating in Iran in recent months. Eroding spaces of freedom or preventing women and girls from accessing work and education – and here I am thinking especially of Afghanistan – means mortgaging the future of those countries. There is no future without the recognition of fundamental freedoms and without the guarantee of equal dignity among all human beings.
In the southern and eastern Mediterranean, where 40% of the population is under 25 years old, youth unemployment is among the highest in the world for more than two decades, despite the high levels of education of young people in all Euro-Mediterranean countries. As for women, there can be no development without them becoming protagonists in their own society. This requires job creation and the promotion of a local ecosystem favourable to youth and female entrepreneurship, as well as participation in the public life of their societies.
And among the fundamental freedoms that Italy is committed to upholding is freedom of religion and belief: a fundamental human right that is still too often denied or insufficiently guaranteed. Italy stands by the side of religious minorities who are victims of attacks, violence and discrimination in every part of the world and supports the efforts of our partners in the wider Mediterranean to protect these communities and with them the central value of religious freedom and the protection and respect for religious heritage and sacred places.
I’ll conclude by observing that many European policies risk being incomplete if they are not placed within a broader Euro-Mediterranean dimension. President Mattarella has defined the Mediterranean as “an area of great cultural diversification, of unparalleled elaboration of philosophies and scientific discoveries, with precious contributions in the dialogue between different [knowledge systems] that have given rise to clashes and then to unprecedented unions”. It is a phrase that I found very beautiful. In order to build a positive agenda – with common intentions among people with different identities – it is, therefore, necessary to start again by placing the individual – with his cultural, educational and social needs – at the centre of attention.
And so I want to thank you, once again, for the ideas and proposals with which you have enriched the debate over these three days. The ideas that have emerged from these discussions will be, as [Minister] Tajani said, a source of inspiration for guiding the collaborative relations between Italy and its partners in the wider Mediterranean region towards a common path that guarantees security, stability and development for present and future generations.
So I thank you and look forward to meeting Ambassador Massolo at the ninth edition of the Dialogues on the Mediterranean in Rome!
