Italy and african countries

Italy and Africa Meeting 2021

Rome [ENA] The Italian Chamber of Deputies (169 votes in favour, 119 against and 3 abstentions) approved the decree on the governance of the so-called "Mattei Plan" which aims at the development of the states of the African continent. Since no changes were made compared to the text already approved by the Senate, the decree was converted into law. The Plan has the name of Enrico Mattei

who was an Italian public administrator. After World War II, he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip. Instead, Mattei enlarged and reorganized it into the National Fuel Trust (Italian: Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, ENI). Under his direction, ENI negotiated important oil concessions in the Middle East as well as a significant trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which helped break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the mid-20th-century oil industry. He also introduced the principle whereby the country that owned exploited oil reserves received 75% of the profits.

Preparations are underway at Palazzo Chigi - the headquarters of the italian government- for the Italy-Africa Conference which will be held on January 28th and 29th in Rome. The summit will be attended by around twenty African heads of state and dozens of foreign ministers as well as the Italian government ministers interested in the plan. This is an opportunity that will serve to dispel doubts about the actual state of progress of the Plan which is in the hands of the former Italian ambassador to Tunis Fabrizio Saggio, who has become diplomatic advisor to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and head of the Mission Structure and his deputy, councilor Lorenzo Ortona.

The opposition raised doubts during the parliamentary debate. The first project entitled to the Mattei Plan is the “MAMi – Farmers Markets” programme, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and implemented by CIHEAM Bari in collaboration with the World Farmers Market Coalition and promoted by Coldiretti through the Campagna Amica Foundation which proposes to offer technical support for the development of new farmers' markets in Albania, Egypt, Lebanon, Kenya and Tunisia. In addition to this initiative that has just started, the only ready project would be the one concerning Tunisia on which former ambassador Saggio himself would have worked.

The Plan in concrete terms will be outlined in the comparison with the African nations which will take place as part of the Italy-Africa conference convened at the end of January 2024. All this will take place in the name of a new model of cooperation, not predatory but an equal partnership. The initiative must serve to put into motion the ideas already born within the EU, so as to ensure that there are more and more resources for the joint Africa-Europe development plan.

The involvement of the EU is certainly the other issue to be resolved, there is in fact the awareness of not being decisive on the African continent without an enlargement of the Plan to the European Union, but not only. The problem is that, so far, no one seems to have accepted the invitation. Relations with Africa, the prime minister assured, will be at the center of the Italian presidency of the G7 which has just begun. The theme will be central during the Italian presidency of the G7, but it must also be central in Brussels, within the EU's plans.