The Idlib tragedy and the lack of EU

A tragedy is taking place in northeast Syria. The regime's attack on Idlib province - supported by Russia - has opened up a terrible scenario. There are a million people trying to escape from the bombs and leave those territories that will return under Assad's control.

Turkey has responded militarily to this attack but has also decided to open its borders. Tens of thousands of people could arrive again in Europe, because Ankara has decided to stop the containment pact decided with the EU years ago.

Erdogan chose this move to pressure the Europeans, who have held a detached attitude to the Syrian situation, despite it being the biggest international crisis of the last decade. The EU has addressed the situation only in an emergency, it has only tried to buffer its effects without going to the root.

In Syria as in Libya, it seems that the only European interest is to ensure that immigration is blocked. Let me be clear, I don't want to underestimate the problem, but we cannot always and only be so short-sighted. The idea of entrusting control of migratory flows to Turkey (or Tripoli) and then turning to the other side, pretending that nothing else was happening, is obviously not rewarding.

Europe proves once again strategically weak. Now that Erdogan uses people again as a weapon; now that Russia has pushed the campaign on Idlib with the strategy of creating further chaos that could fragment the EU, what will be done?

Let us remember that since the previous migration crisis in 2015, populist and nationalist instances had grown in EU-zone, which are the same ones that season everything with an ineffective anti-Europeanism and that are preferred by the EU's disarticulation plan which in Russia is in fact a strategy for return to bilateral negotiations with individual countries rather than with the Union.

A much bigger game is being played in Idlib than the ongoing battle: and all the players on the field are using the refugees, the people, to carry out their interests.