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The Carrot and the Stick Approach to Migrant Flow Management
Helen Walsh
June 17, 2024
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as the most popular leader within the G7 and host of the 2024 Apulia Summit, wielded significant influence over the wording of the section on migration in the Apulia G7 Leaders' Communiqué, a key item on this year's agenda.
Since Meloni's election in 2022, and despite her harsh anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric that year, Italy has admitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers.
As she moved from the far right closer to the centre, and subsequently became one of the most powerful politicians in Europe, Meloni's language grew more nuanced and pragmatic, focusing on differentiating legal from illegal migrant flows, and framing immigration as human right.
This is not the human right we often think of – the right of everyone to seek asylum from persecution as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to seek international protection as safeguarded by the Geneva Convention on Refugees – although G7 leaders reconfirmed this in the communiqué as well.
Instead, Meloni frames it as the right to stay in one's own country and expect educational and employment opportunities, rather than be forced into the hands of "criminal gangs" of human smugglers who prey on the vulnerable.
Thus, the G7 took a three-pronged approach to migration at the Apulia Summit:
Address root causes of migration through sustainable development initiatives, economic investment and stabilization efforts. This intersected in particular with another summit priority, Africa, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine.
Meloni claims the Apulia Summit spearheaded a new approach to development in Africa, in partnership with African governments and development agencies, banks and organizations such as the African Union to fund infrastructure projects, in particular green energy projects. The goal is to spur economic prosperity and shared, sustainable growth, not to deliver charity.
Through initiatives such as Italy's Mattei Plan for Africa and the G7's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) with its topline goal of mobilizing $600 billion for investment in emerging economies, the G7 reiterated its support for "local value creation, strengthened democratic values, local ownership and concrete initiatives."
(Note: In the two years since PGII was announced, only one tenth of the money pledged has been committed during a period that covers one fifth of the identified timeline.)
Reduce or end illegal migration. The G7 committed to enhanced border management and enforcement, in particular curbing the transnational criminal groups behind migrant smuggling and trafficking.
It will launch the G7 Coalition to Prevent and Counter the Smuggling of Migrants to coordinate efforts and share data, and engage relevant authorities in countries of origin, transit and destination. Meloni compared this to the "follow the money" approach used in the fight against the mafia in Italy.
In addition to the development, economic and conflict issues that are drivers of "illegal migration," G7 leaders also recognized that climate change multiplies that risk especially for countries in the Global South.
They also affirmed the sovereign right of states to control their borders, as well as their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction, in conformity with international law.
Create new legal pathways for migration. Meloni is determined that Italy, not human traffickers, will decide who comes into the country. To that end, Italy recently signed a multi-year deal with Tunisia to simplify visa and residence procedures for Tunisians who want to emigrate and seek to do that with other countries as well. The leaders of several countries in the Middle East and Africa, including Kenya, Tunisia, Algeria and Turkey, and Mauritania in its capacity as chair of the African Union, were invited to the Apulia Summit as part of the G7's outreach efforts.
The communiqué included only one reference to "the important economic and social benefits that migrants can bring to our countries as well as to low- and middle-income countries, including through remittances." Remittances have historically been equal or greater in size to official development aid.
But the language of the summit, and in the communiqué, referred frequently to the need to "more effectively manage migration." In Meloni's final press briefing she went further, referring to the "global emergency that is the management of migrant flows" and the need to economically incentivize countries of origin or transit to assist in the fight against illegal migration.
A plan of action is to be created and implemented as swiftly as possible. To that end, G7 interior and security ministers are to start work as soon as possible, Meloni announced at the press briefing.
The ministers are scheduled to meet on October 2–3, 2024, in Mirabella Eclano.
With 6.2% of the word count of the final communiqué devoted to migration, it was clearly an important topic, up from 2020 and 2021 summits where no words were produced on the topic, and from the 2022 Elmau and 2023 Hiroshima summits, which dedicated 113 (1%) and 665 (2%) words, respectively.
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