July-December 2020 Volume: 10, No: 2, pp. 155 – 174 ISSN: 2046-4436 e-ISSN: 2046-4444 https://www.tplondon.com/bordercrossing/ Copyright @ 2020 BORDER CROSSING Transnational Press London Received: 1 August 2020 Accepted: 13 September 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.33182/bc.v10i2.1110 Fleeing from the Global Compact for Migration: A missed opportunity for Italy Chiara Scissa 1 Abstract This article examines the reasons that in December 2018 led both the Italian Parliament and Government to refrain from the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which first Italy promoted as a way to revitalise the European Union’s solidarity and coordination, whi le lessening the uneven burden of migratory inflows into the country. Although it has been argued that ‘the opposition to the Compact has propagandistic objectives, that cannot be negotiated away’ (Gatti, 2018, p. 1) this article aims to demonstrate the wide socio-economic and political benefits that the Global Compact will bring to Italy if adopted, as well as the gains that an instrument of international migration governance will bring to national migration policy. This contribution also highlights the opportunities that the Global Compact offers a truly common European approach to migration. Keywords: Global Compact for Migration; Italy; migration governance; European Union; nationalism. Introduction This article 2 explores a recent attempt to bridge the gap between migration governance 3 and migration policy 4 by means of a hoped-for ‘universal’ system of international cooperation – the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (hereinafter GCM or Global Compact). In particular, this contribution examines the reasons that in December 2018 led both the Italian Parliament and Government to refrain from the Global Compact, which Italy first had promoted as a way to revitalise the European Union’s solidarity and coordination, while lessening the uneven burden of migratory inflows into the country. Although it has been argued that ‘the opposition to the Compact has propagandistic objectives, that cannot be negotiated away’ (Gatti, p. 1), this paper aims to demonstrate the wide benefits that the GCM will bring to Italy if adopted, in other terms, the gains that an instrument of international migration governance will bring to national migration policy. This is believed to be the first thorough analysis of the political debate around the Global Compact in the case of Italy from a 1 Chiara Scissa, Ph.D student, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, DIRPOLIS Institute, Pisa, Italy. E-mail: chiara.scissa@santannapisa.it. 2 My deepest gratitude to Professor Marco Borraccetti for his constant support and wise advice, and to PhD Susanna Villani for her bibliographical suggestions 3 Betts defines global migration governance as ‘a range of norms, rules, principles, decision-making procedures that exists over and above the level of a single nation-state’ (Betts, 2010). See also IOM 2019 Glossary on Migration, available at https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/iml_34_glossary.pdf 4 Bjerre et al. define migration policy as ‘a government’s statements of what it intends to do or not do (including laws, regulations, decisions or orders) in regards to the selection, admission, settlement and deportation of foreign citizens residing in the country’ (Bjerre, Helbling, Römer, & Zobel, 2014)