Geopolitica del confine migratorio: il governo Meloni e la rotta del Mediterraneo centrale

Since the peak of 2015, when the great majority of more than one million migrants travelled along the Eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to Greece, irregular arrivals in the EU have decreased significantly. Nonetheless, migrants and asylum seekers have continued to use the Central Mediterranean route to enter the EU on an irregular basis. As well as through other migration routes from the global South, a worrying social awareness has arisen making it difficult to allow for migrations that, otherwise, an increasingly interdependent and globalized economy requires. The paper aims at discussing the border regime that is emerging along the Central Mediterranean route. In 2003 Italy financed the construction of a camp for undocumented migrants in Gharyan, near Tripoli. Italy also sponsored the return of migrants from Libya to their putative country of origin. Libya actively supported Italian action. However, the 2011 civil war in Libya and subsequent instability made it difficult to continue to bargain this “de-territorial” collaboration on migration. The migration crisis in 2014-2015 represented a critical juncture. In June 2015, EUNAVFOR Med launched Operation Sophia. One year before, the European Union Agency Frontex had launched its southern Mediterranean border-monitoring operation Triton. The two operations can be considered as the prelude to the 2017 Memorandum, when Italy and Libya signed an agreement to strengthen their cooperation on migration. The paper discusses the geopolitics of this border regime until up the comprehensive partnership between the EU and Tunisia, announced in June 2023, and the most recent agreement with Albania (on 15 November) to build reception camps in the Balkans.