{"id":580749,"date":"2025-11-19T16:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/580749\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T16:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:26:16","slug":"italy-and-spain-see-the-mediterranean-as-a-strategic-frontier-for-security-migration-and-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/580749\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy and Spain See the Mediterranean as a Strategic Frontier for Security, Migration and Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Italy and Spain are sharpening their joint focus on the Mediterranean, framing it as a decisive geopolitical front where migration pressures, energy dependencies and regional instability converge.\u2028 This was the message emerging from the Italy\u2013Spain Mediterranean Dialogue hosted by the Med-Or Foundation in partnership with the Real Instituto Elcano, a format that brought together senior officials, diplomats and analysts from both countries.<\/p>\n<p><b>Why It Matters. <\/b>Both governments argue that the Mediterranean is no longer a peripheral theatre, but a strategic axis that will shape Europe\u2019s future\u2014on security, energy, and its role on the African continent.<\/p>\n<p><b>The Opening Message. <\/b>Alfredo Mantovano, Undersecretary to the Italian Prime Minister and delegated authority for national security, set the tone early:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cItaly and Spain face an unprecedented migratory pressure,\u201d he warned, stressing that the fight against irregular flows must go hand in hand with more effective legal channels.<\/li>\n<li>Ignoring Africa\u2019s centrality, he cautioned, would be \u201ca strategic mistake that has already been made\u2014and must not be repeated.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Mediterranean as a Global Chessboard. <\/b>Marco Minniti, President of the Med-Or Italian Foundation, outlined the Mediterranean as a fulcrum of global competition:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cVarious critical games for global stability are being played here,\u201d he said, pointing to the Middle East, Tunisia and Turkey as decisive political and geographic nodes.\n<ul>\n<li>He described Lebanon\u2019s fragility, tensions in the West Bank, China\u2019s footprint in the region and the evolving Libyan file as \u201cpieces of the same chessboard.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, for Minniti, one essential element is that the \u201cplan for Africa\u201d must be European, not the sum of national initiatives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Spain\u2019s View. <\/b>Ana Palacio, former Spanish foreign minister, stressed the long historical presence of Rome and Madrid in the region:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cItaly and Spain must recover influence in Africa,\u201d she argued, highlighting maritime cooperation and joint operations, such as Mare Nostrum.<\/li>\n<li>The warning was clear: without a recognisable European role, other actors will step in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Security and Migration.\u00a0<\/b>The first roundtable quickly shifted to operational challenges. Claudio Galzerano, Director of Immigration and Border Police at the Italian Interior Ministry, summed it up:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe real match is played in countries of origin.\u201d<br \/>Reception systems, he noted, cannot absorb new waves without significant strain.<\/li>\n<li>Carmen Gonz\u00e1lez Enr\u00edquez, Senior Fellow at the Real Instituto Elcano, presented the Spanish approach, legal pathways and bilateral accords: \u201cA model based on regular migration is possible,\u201d she said, citing the decreto flussi mechanisms in Rome and Madrid.<\/li>\n<li>But without a structured EU framework, she warned, national efforts will remain partial.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Energy: Infrastructure and Influence <\/b>Energy was another pillar of the debate.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mar\u00eda Teresa Nonay, Strategy and Planning Director at Enag\u00e1s, described the Mediterranean as a human, political and energy crossroads, insisting that Europe must maintain a preeminent presence to avoid new dependencies.<\/li>\n<li>Lorenzo Ortona, Deputy Coordinator for Italy\u2019s Mattei Plan, linked energy security to Italian initiatives in Africa: \u201cThe Mattei Plan is a soft-power tool, but also a platform for equal cooperation and long-term planning,\u201d he said, noting that the Elmed interconnection between Tunisia and Europe carries significance \u201cbeyond its technical dimension.\u201d\n<ul>\n<li>Italy, he added, is investing not only in energy assets but in human capital, training young Africans in renewable technologies, \u201ca political investment as much as an economic one.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Marco Piredda, Head of International Affairs Analysis &amp; Business Support at Eni, underscored the strategic shift: \u201cElmed is the future of Euro-Mediterranean energy supply,\u201d explaining how strong partnerships in Africa enabled Italy to compensate for lost Russian gas quickly.\n<ul>\n<li>Energy security, he stressed, is inseparable from political stability on both shores.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The big picture: <\/b>The Sea That Will Shape Europe\u2019s Future<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>From maritime security to energy corridors, from regular migration to geopolitical competition, everything converges in the Mediterranean.<\/li>\n<li>Italy and Spain, by geography and history, are on the front line of a sea that is no longer just a border, but a global pressure point.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The takeaway from the Med-Or\u2013Elcano Dialogue is unambiguous:<br \/><b\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Mediterranean is Europe\u2019s strategic centre of gravity.<\/li>\n<li>Its stability underpins the continent\u2019s national security, energy resilience, economic strength and industrial future\u2014those who forget this risk being overtaken by events.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy and Spain are sharpening their joint focus on the Mediterranean, framing it as a decisive geopolitical front&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-580749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115577302756721938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}