Today's summit in Brussels on migrants opens in a climate of great pessimism after yesterday's heated exchange of accusations between Italy and France, supported by Spain under the new socialist government of Pedro Sanchez. There is no mention of revising the Dublin Treaty which obliges countries of first arrival to welcome migrants. And it would already be a success if the deep divisions between the different countries didn't really screw up Europe, over which the nationalist and sovereignist wave is looming more and more every day.
Even yesterday the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was very tough against sovereign-led Italy and once again crossed swords with the deputy premiers Salvini and Di Maio. "Italy - Macron argued - is not experiencing a migration crisis and financial sanctions must be foreseen against countries that do not want to welcome migrants". The response of the Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, was not long in coming: “Arrogant Macron. He opens his doors ”. The other deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, echoed him: "Macron is out of touch with reality, Italy will not back down"
The new Spanish president, Pedro Sanchez, instead supported Macron, with whom he had just seen, even if he shifted the focus to Brussels: "Italy is selfish because of the European Union" and its inconclusiveness.
At this point, Italy's last hope lies in the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who in recent days – faced with the impossibility of a European agreement that everyone agrees with on migrants – had proposed attempting bilateral or trilateral agreements. However, the foresight and pragmatism of the Chancellor have to deal with the intransigence of her Minister of the Interior, the Bavarian Seehofer, who threatens to apply the hard line of the pushbacks of migrants in the countries where they initially landed, i.e. first place Italy.
The silence of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte suggests that, beyond the controversies with France and beyond, the Italian government still hopes to bring home a substantial allocation (we are talking about 500 million euros) for all the necessary interventions in Africa to stop the wave of migrants and the green light for the European Coast Guard with a supply of at least 10 men. In recent days, Merkel had made it clear that Germany, although besieged by the sovereigns, could push into this terrain but then the tussle broke out and everything went back to the high seas.
Today we will see but no one is betting on an agreement in Brussels.
