Full pockets. More on deportations and Detention centers

23 April 2022 Off By passamontagna

Published on 18/04/2022 in No Cpr Turin

Last Wednesday, April 13, 2022, during a routine parliamentary question, the Minister of the Interior Luciana Lamorgese flaunted the results of cooperation between the Italian and Tunisian governments with respect to the number of repatriations carried out in the first months of the year: 850 Tunisians were deported.

Since the summer of 2020, numerous meetings and Italian-Tunisian diplomatic exchanges have reinforced the cooperation between these two countries with the aim of preventing departures, by intercepting boats in Tunisian territorial waters and rejecting them and increasing the repatriations of Tunisian citizens from Italy to Tunisia. The number of repatriations has increased significantly over the last five years.

Tunisia is the main destination of citizens repatriated from Italy (more than 1,922 Tunisian nationals in 2020 and 1,872 in 2021), and is also the main nationality of persons detained in the CPR.

In 2020, out of a total of 4,387 detainees* in the Centres, 2,623 persons, of which 13 women and 2,610 men, were of Tunisian origin. According to data from the Italian Ministry of Interior, in the first six months of 2021,about 1,270 Tunisian nationals were transferred to the CPRs. From 1 January to 15 November 2021, 2,465 Tunisians transited through the CPRs, i.e. 54.9% of the total (4,489).

Following the renewal of the agreements between Tunisia and Italy in 2021, the deportation procedure has been significantly accelerated and the return can take place a few days after arrival at the centre. The return to Tunisia generally takes place through charter flights to the international airport Enfidha-Hammamet (data extrapolated from the Study on returns in Tunisia).

As also mentioned in the previous article, the European Justice and Home Affairs Council will meet in Luxembourg on 9 and 10 June. The Justice and Home Affairs Council, which meets every three months, aims to develop common policies on various cross-border issues in terms of control, security and repression. The Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) consists of the justice and home affairs ministers of all EU Member States. Justice ministers are responsible for judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters, while home affairs ministers are responsible, among other things, for migration, border management and police cooperation.

Here, they present data on activities carried out and negotiate the terms, including and above all economic terms, of future action. When the economic support to Italy of the New EU Migration Pact will be discussed, it will certainly be convenient to flaunt, as with any good company budget, reassuring figures on the commitment and the role played, so as to justify new requests and petitions.

The European Pact on Migration and Asylum is a policy document published on 23 September 2020 with which the European Commission has set out the guidelines that will guide work on migration over the next five years and, specifically, in which it seeks to promote a common EU system for returns.

In its own words, the Commission bases the Pact on three principles:

1. New integrated procedures to rapidly establish status upon arrival. This includes, inter alia, the enhancement of the Eurodac database through fingerprinting and registration and a stronger role for the European Border and Coast Guard, FRONTEX, which is implemented and active as of 1 January 2021.

2. A common internal framework “for solidarity and shared responsibility”.

3. A change in the approach to “cooperation with third countries”.

While one cannot fail to notice the blatant reversal of the meaning of “solidarity”, here understood as a glittering accessory on the arm of the concept of “responsibility”, one cannot fail to notice that this second point is nothing more than an attempt to balance the compulsory and shared practical involvement of the various countries with the sprinkling of political recognition and economic rewards. The approach to ‘migration management’ is now defined as ‘unitary’, which is the new name given to externalisation policies by the Eurocentric perspective. In fact, with respect to the third point, it is superfluous to comment on how the so-called partnerships with third countries are instrumental in controlling departures through surveillance, repression, rejections and detentions, not without appropriate compensation.

It is not for nothing that, without mincing words, the Vice-President of the Commission, Margaritis Schinas, declared that the final objective was to prevent foreigners from entering European territory by means of agreements with non-European countries of origin and transit and by investing in the agency for the control of external borders.

In Luxembourg, therefore, everyone will benefit from 850 paltry items to put on the scales: they cost little, but they will be transmuted into a figure that will benefit both the Tunisian government, a privileged interlocutor and, if not reliable, at least concrete for the Farnesina, and Italy, which will be able to flaunt a positive number to demonstrate its commitment and effectiveness. After all, the 9.88 billion Euros of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the 6.24 billion Euros of the Integrated Border Management Fund are not exactly crumbs to be shared.