“Our foreign policy budget nowadays is peanuts. We can lower our expectations, we can narrow our idea of ‘world’, or we can ensure that our global presence meets our aspirations by equipping it with the necessary resources”. These were the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli during the presentation of the report published by the MFA and the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) on “Italy’s Policy in Africa”. The event was held in the parliamentary groups’ “Nuova Aula”.
Italy’s diplomatic network in Africa is limited compared with other countries’
The report underscores that, compared with other major western countries or the emerging economies, Italy has a limited number of diplomatic missions (embassies) in the southern Sahara region. Missions that tend to focus on the biggest countries and often have to cover more than one state. Commenting on the report’s conclusions, Pistelli observed “I don’t think this should involve leaving some other part of the world, in a shift to Africa. It should involve bringing our diplomatic network there, which is incomplete, into line with Italy’s opportunities and potential in the African continent”.
