The sentence of the Palermo court is a concession to Realpolitik and can create a dangerous precedent. The process that matters is political. Thus Meloni condemned Salvinism to irrelevance on immigration
Salvini acquitted, Salvinism is not. The sentence of a court counts, of course, and Salvini has excellent reasons to rejoice at the four words delivered yesterday by the Court of Palermo on the Open Arms case: the fact does not exist. It could be said that the Court of Palermo's ruling was a political one, so to speak, because it was the former Interior Minister himself who confessed to having violated the law of the sea, five years ago, in the Open Arms case. and the court's ruling, from this point of view, it is a concession to Realpolitik and can create a dangerous precedent: if a minister decides to put political propaganda on a higher pedestal than respect for international law that minister is entitled to do so. The sentence of the Palermo court is important and must be respected, as they say in these cases, even if with some doubts, and if Salvini had been given a small sentence equal to a thousand hours to dedicate to the study of international treaties and another thousand hours to spend traveling around the Mediterranean with an NGO would not have been a scandal.
But the issues raised by the Open Arms trial force us to reflect on another equally important trial, which always concerns the immigration dossier, which always concerns Minister Salvini and which in this case sees a conviction without appeal for the deputy prime minister. Salvini will be able to stage all kinds of theater after the outcome of the first degree of the trial in Palermo, but what he cannot quibble about is the fact that the government of which he is partFor two years and counting, he has chosen to move on immigration following a trajectory opposite to that theorized by the deputy prime minister in recent years. Over the last few years Salvini has always maintained – and the Palermo ruling will give him some more elements to continue supporting him – that to govern immigration it is necessary to close ports, promote a naval blockade, challenge Europe, ally with the nationalists, reject the Ursula model, not sign the treaties on asylum and migrants, not reactivate the European naval missions and not ask for solidarity from the European partners to avoid transforming Italy into Europe's refugee camp. The government of which Salvini is a member, however, has soundly rejected the Salvini model, condemning it to irrelevance, and fortunately has done quite the opposite, demonstrating that the Truce model approach to immigration is counterproductive for the defense of the national interest . And so, in these last two years, the government of which Salvini is deputy prime minister has done the opposite of what Salvini claims is necessary to do when it comes to immigration: he did not close the ports, he did not challenge Europe, he did not ally himself with the nationalists, he promoted the Ursula model, he signed the treaty on asylum and migrants.
He asked for solidarity from Europe, he endorsed the idea of reactivating European naval missions, he chose to approve the most impressive Flows decree in the history of the Republic and he obtained some results that, not surprisingly, Salvini cannot claim. Salvini, we know, has always maintained that the only way to stop immigration is to challenge Europe, even at the cost of violating international treaties. The government of which Salvini is part, however, by rejecting Salvinism, condemning it to its irrelevance, has done quite the opposite, followed a different path and chosen to govern immigration by acting on the treaties, asking for the collaboration of Europe and arriving at stopping the flows of migrants without closing the ports but by triangulating with the same European institutions that Salvini would have liked to challenge.
There was nothing political in Salvini's trial, no persecution, and conspiracies are serious things, and what the magistrates did, on this occasion, in these years, was simply try to enforce the rule of law, remembering the obvious: the law of the sea is worth more than the right of a minister to let his propaganda prevail over the rule of law. The match in court went as we know – and only a joker can be saddened by the fact that Salvini was not sentenced to six years in prison: the kidnapping, objectively, was too much, the refusal of official documents was not. The political game, in recent years, however, is without appeal for the leader of the League and the government's sentence, at least in recent years, is clear: we support Salvini in words, in trials, we condemn him mercilessly with facts, with government action. Ultimately, the process that matters for Italy is this. Best wishes to Salvini, for a Christmas without trucism.
