Fewer and fewer migrants are reaching Europe, but this could change

For the agreements to hold, however, the EU is obliged to hope that the countries involved maintain a certain stability. The situation is particularly delicate in Libya: the North African country, plunged into civil war after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, is in fact disputed between two governments and countless armed militias. After months of relative calm, in May in the capital Tripoli the situation escalated again. And the EU immediately wondered whether the major gateway to its territory was not about to reopen.

According to Matteo Villa of the ISPI (Italian Institute for International Policy Studies), however, this scenario would not be likely at the moment: 'Italy is deliberately distancing itself in order to be able to maintain good relations with all the political actors in Tripoli'. Rome's objective would be precisely to maintain good relations with all the militias 'that could prove useful, both in the energy sector and with regard to migration issues'.

Generally, explains Villa, instability initially produces a drop in departures, which can then be followed by a new increase, but this depends on various factors. In any case, neither the first nor the second scenario would be in place right now, but rather a 'relatively stable situation that is still high in numbers and in which, in recent months, there has been a slight upward trend'. Indeed, the Italian Ministry of the Interior recently reported a new increase in arrivals between April and May, which Minister Matteo Piantedosi, expressing concern, attributed to Libyan developments.

In fact, Piantedosi should also be concerned about another matter: in January, executing the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, Italy arrested Njeem Osama Elmasry, then head of the Libyan judicial police, only to release him and return him to Libya shortly thereafter, causing great indignation. It became clear that Giorgia Meloni's government did not want to risk the agreement with Libya on immigration because of an arrest. Only now Elmasry has reappeared at the head of the Rada militia, involved in the recent clashes in Tripoli. If this power struggle were to lead to further destabilisation of the country and, consequently, to new migratory flows to Italy, this would be blamed, at least in part, on the government in Rome itself.

In monitoring the situation in Libya, one must not forget its southern neighbour, the Sudan, where a civil war is causing the world's worst refugee crisis. One might assume that many of those refugees will attempt to reach Europe via Libya. Angenendt, however, is not of this opinion: 'These are the poorest of the poor: they often cannot even reach neighbouring safe countries or even safe areas within the country itself'. Some of them, he adds, will probably make it to Europe, 'simply because there are so many refugees here. But they will certainly not flood into our continent en masse'.

Gonzalo Fanjul of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health also does not believe that there will be serious repercussions for the EU. "Conflicts such as those in Sudan or Gaza provoke migratory movements that do not affect Europe, but at most - and not even always - neighbouring countries".

Things are different, Angenendt explains, regarding the 'de facto abolition of US international cooperation'. This is one of the many controversial decisions of Donald Trump, who has practically dismantled USAID, the US agency for international cooperation. Funds from the United States accounted for up to 40 per cent of the budget of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): 'They were essential for dealing with the refugee issue, especially in the countries bordering the countries of departure'. Angenendt points out that Great Britain also reduced its budget in this area, as did Austria.

These decisions are 'absolutely short-sighted', comments Angenendt, recalling 2015. At that time, the great European refugee and migrant crisis began because, once the funds for adequate assistance in Syria's neighbouring countries ran out, many Syrians set off for Europe. And now, warns Angenendt, we risk history repeating itself in the short to medium term. And we have to ask ourselves whether in that eventuality the countries that have signed agreements with the EU will still be able to act as 'bouncers'.

Not all EU countries, however, focus on deterrence, border defence and aid cuts. At the end of May, the left-wing Spanish government announced an imminent simplification of regulations on the issuing of residence and work permits. This is expected to remedy the situation of some 900,000 immigrants within three years: a measure that, according to Immigration Minister Elma Saiz, is not only humanitarian, but also economic.

Although its economy has been booming for years, Spain, like many other EU states, is facing a labour shortage. "How," Fanjul asks, "can the European Union organise the labour migration it urgently needs?" Access will necessarily have to be through legal, regulated and safe channels. "Instead, on the whole, European countries are going in the wrong direction. The positive exceptions are few; one is Spain, which 'tries to manage migratory movements to best pursue its own economic interests, acting more correctly than other countries'. 

*This article is part of the European collaborative journalism project "Pulse"