Political Report Card Logo * What we do * Who we are * Newsletters * Book * Support us * fb * tw * ig Near Support us Menu backwards ## Letta is wrong about the decline in migratory flows by Editorial Staff | 07 February 2019 ![\\"Report card](\\"\\") Enrico Letta The declaration «Today I read Salvini who said “Thanks to us the flows have dropped”. THE flows have fallen throughout Europe, it's not that they have fallen in Italy, they are drop down everywhere." (min. 19' 20'') Source: Che tempo che fa – Rai | January 27, 2019 facebook twitter whatsapp email ![\\"Handle\\"](\\"\\") Handle Brief verdict Pinocchio going On 27 January 2019 Enrico Letta, interviewed on Che tempo che fa on the first Rai channel, contested a statement by the Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini: according to the former Prime Minister, the decrease in arrivals of migrants does not only concern Italy, but also all other countries Europeans. Salvini would therefore have no reason to claim success particular for its policies, in relation to the decrease in flows. We checked. The European data According to UNHCR data (the High United Nations Commissioner for Refugees), between January and December 139,300 migrants arrived in Europe in 2018, recording a decrease of 33,024 attendance: around 20 percent less than 2017, when 172,324 people reached European shores. The drop is even more significant if read in comparison with 2016 (363,425 arrivals) and with 2015, the year in which the number reached a maximum peak of 1,015,877 migrants. As a percentage, compared to 2015, flows across Europe in 2018 fell by 86.28% hundred. However, we must make a clarification: the data provided by the UNHCR for the 2018 concerns migrants who arrived in Europe by sea and by land in Italy, Greece and Spain, to which must be added 2,211 people who landed in Cyprus and Malta. Speaking of irregular migration by land, the countries involved are Spain and Greece. In the first case we refer to those who have in 2018 reached the Spanish enclaves in Africa of Ceuta and Melilla. For Greece, instead, these are migrants who arrive in the country's territories from where they come from from the border with Turkey. For previous years and, therefore, from 2015 to 2017, only arrivals by sea are considered. Flows in rise towards Spain and Greece The reduction in the number of arrivals in 2018 did not however, it is homogeneous in all countries of first arrival. According to the Travel report desperate people drawn up by the UNHCR, while in Italy arrivals have decreased by 80 percent in 2018 compared to 2017, Spain and Greece recorded an increase of 131 percent and 45 percent, respectively. The change of direction was gradual over the twelve months. It reads in fact in the dossier that «in the first half of the year the number of people arrived in Greece rather than in Italy or Spain, while in the second half Spain became the main entry point, from moment that an ever-increasing number of people have attempted the dangerous crossing along the western Mediterranean route". ![\\"graph\\"](\\"imagefly/chart_default/650/365/i-migratory-flows-to- leuropa\\"/) Graph 1: Migration flows towards Europe (Italy, Greece, Spain) in 2017 and 2018 – Source: UNHCR Matteo Salvini's statement On a side note: the dramatic drop in landings in Italy is to be attributed exclusively to the action of Matteo Salvini? As highlighted by an in-depth analysis of the Institute of International Politics (ISPI) published on 1 October 2018 and based on the reprocessing of data provided by UNHCR, the number of arrivals in Italy has seen a progressive reduction starting from July 2017, continuing "in a linear manner over the following eleven months". In this period the government in office was led by Paolo Gentiloni and the minister of the Interior was Marco Minniti. The ISPI study compares the data of the previous government with the action of the current one, until September 2018: yes reads that «the period that corresponds to Salvini's policies record a further reduction in landings (around 61 per day): one contraction equivalent to 48 percent compared to the policy period Minniti, and 89 percent if compared with the last phase of the "crisis migratory" in Italy" (16 July 2016 – 15 July 2017). The data is confirmed also from the UNHCR "Desperate Journeys" report where it is underlined that «although arrivals by sea in Italy were already significant decreased starting from July 2017, from June 2018 there was a further decline following Italy's decision to no longer allow it disembarkation in Italian ports of refugees and migrants rescued by NGOs and ships merchant ships off the Libyan coast, in what has become the Zone of Libyan search and rescue (Search and Rescue Region/SRR)". The Enrico verdict Letta, guest on Che tempo che fa, underlined how this is not correct associate the merit of the decline in migratory flows solely with the choices made in the last months from Italy (as Matteo Salvini seems to do) since we are witnessing a general decrease in flows towards the entire European continent. There humanitarian crisis of 2015 – when more than a million people have reached European shores – saw an overall downsizing already in 2016 and 2017. The significant decline in flows in Europe in 2018 was however driven by the Italian data. Last year, while in Italy the number of arrivals continued to decline, landings increased in Greece and, especially, in Spain. Enrico Letta is therefore wrong when he states that i flows "have fallen throughout Europe": in Greece and Spain they have increased considerable way. For this reason, the former Prime Minister brings himself a “Pinocchio going” at home. * Eu * Immigration * Italy * Mediterranean Sea * Social issues ## SUPPORT REPORT CARD Politics without small talk. 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Today I read Salvini saying Thanks to us the flows have dropped Flows have dropped throughout Europe It is not that they've dropped in Italy they've dropped everywhere