After the announcement by Guido Crosetto, who stated that he does not want to wait for the timing of the European Aspides mission to guarantee the transit of Italian ships through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Giorgia Meloni’s government is studying the path to provide parliamentary coverage for the intervention of the Navy. The idea is to remain within the same Aspides, which sees Italy at the forefront and has already been approved by the Chambers: however, it must be immediately strengthened and this is what the Minister of Defense asked Kaja Kallas, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs, yesterday: either the EU immediately deploys more ships and more funds or Italy will act alone, but in this case the other twenty-six members of the Union will have to provide financial support.
“We absolutely cannot afford a simultaneous closure of the two straits,” Defense sources explain, and since the Strait of Hormuz is blocked by Iran, it is crucial to guarantee passage through Bab el-Mandeb.
It is a strategy shared by Sergio Mattarella. The head of state has always insisted on the need to strengthen European defense and the strengthening of Aspides is seen at the Quirinale as a step forward towards this goal.
Contacts between Mattarella and the government are constant and a meeting with Crosetto also took place on Thursday, at the exercise in the Monte Romano military range. On that occasion, the president of the republic said that “defense aims to guarantee peace” and that the army must be “interoperable with our allies and partners, within a European framework that allows synergies and economies of scale and better capabilities.” The direction of Aspides, precisely.
DIFFERENT PROBLEMS
The government’s task is made more complicated by the Houthi attack on the King Fahd airbase in Taif, Saudi Arabia, in which an Italian fighter jet was damaged. The opposition’s problems are instead internal in nature, because once again it has managed to split on a foreign policy issue.
The Five Star Movement seems to agree on the defensive escort announced by the Minister of Defense, provided it is voted on in parliament; the PD, where one part is on the same line as Mattarella and another does not exclude abstaining in the probable parliamentary vote, asks for clarifications on the nature of the Italian military presence in Saudi Arabia; Italia Viva wants to know if the planned actions fall within the Aspides mandate or go beyond.
The Greens and Left Alliance, on the other hand, opposes any kind of operation. The stop for the party of Angelo Bonelli and Nicola Fratoianni is given by the group leader in the Senate, Peppe De Cristofaro: “There is no military solution to this crisis, which is why we are against expeditions of our Navy and we do not understand who and what interests our Air Force military serve at the King Fahd base.”
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The mission boundaries were illustrated yesterday by Antonio Tajani. “We are not going to war,” explained the Foreign Minister. The ships that will escort Italian merchant ships will in fact be those employed for Aspides, which is a mission intended “not to attack the Houthis, but to protect the ships.” Necessary because, he recalled, 40% of Italian commercial maritime traffic passes through the Red Sea. Regarding the process, nothing has been decided yet: “If it will be necessary to explain it in parliament, we will do so,” says the head of the Farnesina.
A MISSION TO CHANGE
Aspides is the mission launched in February 2024 by the EU precisely to protect commercial ships from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. It can act only defensively: its rules of engagement allow intercepting missiles and drones in flight and escorting merchant ships, but not striking ground targets. Italy is among the founders of the mission, which now, however, is inadequate to face the threat of the Yemeni rebels armed and financed by Tehran.
The seriousness of the situation is confirmed by the letter Crosetto sent yesterday afternoon to Kallas, the content of which was previewed by the Foglio website. The Minister of Defense asks for “a decisive and urgent intervention by the European Union today,” because at Bab el-Mandeb at this moment there are only the Italian frigate Bergamini and a Greek frigate: an insufficient presence, which forces long waits for merchant ships requesting escort and causes “immediate harmful effects” to European trade.
The Rome government therefore asks the other member states for “immediate and additional contributions” to the mission. If Europe does not give “the expected and due response,” warns Crosetto, Italy is ready “to take on an additional effort”; in this case, however, the costs of the Italian commitment to protect a route “vital for all of Europe” must be shared by all EU member states. The “escort service” has already started. The frigate Bergamini is accompanying the merchant ship Jolly Oro, of the Italian shipping company Ignazio Messina, through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, heading north.
An operation that should last two days.
The announcement was made by the Navy, explaining that this “falls within the tasks assigned to the naval forces of the Aspides operation.” Shipowners thank the government and say that this “goes exactly in the desired direction.”
