ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni on Monday opened a summit of African leaders aimed at illustrating Italy’s big development plan for the continent that her government hopes will stem the numbers of migrants, diversify sources of energy and forge a new relationship between Europe and Africa.
Top European and United Nations officials said the plan, with an initial endowment of 5.5 billion euros, would complement initiatives already under way focusing on climate adaptation and clean energy development. But African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat was more cautious, telling the summit that African countries would have liked to have been consulted beforehand and didn’t want more empty pledges.
“We need to pass from words to deeds,” Faki, the former prime minister of Chad, told the summit. “We cannot be happy with promises that are never maintained.”
Two dozen African leaders, top EU and U.N. officials and representatives from international lending institutions were in Rome for the summit, the first major event of Italy’s Group of Seven presidency.
Italy, which for decades has been ground zero in Europe’s migration debate, has been promoting its development plan as a way to promote the security and economic conditions that will create jobs in Africa and discourage its young people from making dangerous migrations across the Mediterranean Sea. The plan involves pilot projects in areas such as education, health care, water, sanitation, agriculture and infrastructure.
In her opening, Meloni outlined projects from Morocco to Mozambique that she said would enable Africa to become a major exporter of energy to Europe, to help wean it off its dependence on Russian energy following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Italy would stand to benefit as a hydrogen pipeline would pass through the peninsula, she said.
She said the plan envisaged an initial endowment of 5.5 billion euros in loans, gifts and guarantees. It wasn’t immediately clear if the amounts represented new investments or monies previously earmarked for development.
“We want to free up African energy to guarantee younger generations a right, which to date has been denied,” Meloni told the summit in an opening address. “Because here in Europe we talk a lot about the right to emigrate, but we rarely talk about guaranteeing the right to not be forced to emigrate.”
Meloni, Italy’s first hard-right leader since the end of World War II, has made curbing migration a priority of her government. But her first year in power saw a big jump in the numbers of people who arrived on Italy’s shores, with about 160,000 last year.
As the summit got underway, the International Organization for Migration reported that nearly 100 people had died or gone missing in the Mediterranean so far this year, twice as many as in the same period of last year, which was the deadliest since 2016.
The government’s plan, named after Enrico Mattei, founder of state-controlled oil and gas company Eni, seeks to expand cooperation with Africa beyond energy but in a nonpredatory way.
“It’s a cooperation of equals, far from any predatory temptation, but also far from the charitable posture with Africa that rarely is reconciled with its extraordinary potential for development,” Meloni told the leaders.
Italy, which under fascism was a colonial power in North Africa, has previously hosted ministerial-level African meetings. But Monday’s summit — held at the Italian Senate to demonstrate the commitment of all Italian public institutions to the project — marks the first time it’s under the head of state or government level.
As the summit got underway, Italian green and opposition lawmakers planned a counter-conference at Italy’s lower chamber of parliament to criticize the Mattei Plan as a neocolonial “empty box” that seeks to again exploit Africa’s natural resources.
The summit included presentations by Italian ministers detailing various aspects of the plan, while senior EU and U.N. officials offered introductory remarks.
U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed praised Italy for focusing on the key pillars of energy and food systems, saying they complement an approach already mapped out by the African Union. But she lamented that overall, the 2030 targets of the globally-approved U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are “falling woefully short.”
“Many wealthy-country promises of finance for development and climate action remain unfulfilled, eroding trust and exacerbating root causes on the continent,” she said. “I urge the government of Italy to make such deep, effective, and equal partnerships a reality, and to use its presidency of the G7 to work with other countries to do likewise.”
Alongside the Mattei Plan, Meloni’s government has forged controversial deals with individual countries to try to mitigate the migration burden on Italy. An EU-backed deal with Tunisia aims to curb departures through economic development projects and legal migration opportunities, while a bilateral deal with Albania calls for the creation of centers in Albania to process asylum applications for Italy-bound migrants rescued at sea.
Albania’s Constitutional Court on Monday cleared the deal to be voted on by parliament.
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