Berlusconi was the first leader to glimpse the looming migrant crisis

Silvio Berlusconi should be remembered for more than just his passion for football and sex. He was the first European leader this century to identity illegal immigration as an existential threat to the stability and cohesion of the continent.  

Ironically, the former Italian prime minister’s infamous ‘Bunga-Bunga’ parties reportedly owed their name to a joke once told to Berlusconi by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a man who was also acutely aware of Europe’s vulnerability. 

The two leaders were close, a friendship that became politically important when Berlusconi was re-elected PM in April 2008. A significant factor in his victory was illegal immigration from Africa, which had been steadily rising since the start of the century. In the first six months of 2007, 5,378 migrants had landed on Italian soil, a figure that doubled in the same period in 2008. 

Gaddafi saw instantly that he could exploit Berlusconi’s third term in office by blackmailing him. ‘Libya has been suffering in the struggle of warding off the flow of illegal migrants to Italy by depleting its material resources and spending huge amounts of money to protect Italian coasts from waves of illegal migrants,’ announced the Libyan interior ministry in May 2008.