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Michaël Tanchum: Italy and Turkey's Europe-to-Africa Commercial Corridor: Rome and Ankara's Geopolitical Symbiosis Is Creating a New Mediterranean Strategic Paradigm
A geopolitical symbiosis between Italy and Turkey is creating a Turkey-Italy-Tunisia transportation corridor that promises to reconfigure the patterns of trade between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Slicing across the center of the Mediterranean basin, the Turkey-Italy-Tunisia corridor forms an arc of commercial connectivity from the Maghreb to the wider Black Sea. The corridor's central hub is Italy's deep-sea port of Taranto, located on the Italian peninsula's southern tip in the strategic heart of the Mediterranean Sea. Managed by Turkish port operator Yilport, the Taranto port began servicing the Turkey-Italy-Tunisia corridor in early July 2020. The Taranto-Tunisia segment simultaneously forms the core link of the corridor's Europe-to-Africa transport route, by connecting North Africa's coast to the manufacturing centers of Italy, Germany, and northern Europe via Italy and Europe's high-speed rail systems. From Tunisia's ports, the corridor can also link via Algeria to the Trans-Saharan Highway, potentially extending Italy and Turkey's Europe-to-Africa corridor southward into West Africa as far as Lagos, Nigeria.
Incorporating Malta and Tunisia as key transit nodes, the corridor is also giving rise to a new Italo-Turkish-led geopolitical alignment anchored in the central Mediterranean basin. The new alignment is a geopolitical achievement for Italy’s rebalancing toward the wider Mediterranean basin where Rome has exerted its strategic autonomy, particularly in its pivot to Africa. In challenging France’s dominance in Africa, Italy has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey, which has concurrently sought to increase its influence in Africa. Creating a new strategic paradigm for Mediterranean geopolitics, the symbiosis between Rome and Ankara
Italy’s Mediterraneo Allargato Strategy and its Pivot to Africa While Italy maintains its traditional three foreign policy pillars – Europeanism, Atlanticism, and Mediterraneanism, Rome has been attempting to advance its global profile by becoming a central actor in the wider Mediterranean basin. Italy’s strategic framework views the Italian peninsula as the centerline around which exists a horseshoe-shaped geopolitical continuum, termed il Mediterraneo allargato (‘The enlarged Mediterranean’), formed by the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa on one side of the horsehoe and by the Balkans and Middle East on the other. Rome’s strategic priority to expand its economic and political presence in the regions of the Mediterraneo allargato constitutes a central organizing principle for Italy’s foreign relations.
Italy and Turkey’s Strategic Symbiosis in the Mediterranean Italy’s Mediterraneo allargato orientation enjoys a strategic synergy with Turkey’s own drive to develop inter-regional connectivity in the roughly overlapping geographical space defined by the former territories of the Ottoman empire. Italy has long been among the strongest advocates of closer EU-Turkey relations and the two enjoy a very robust trade relationship. After Germany, Italy forms the largest European market for Turkish exports, garnering Turkey $9.53 billion in revenue in 2019.5 With the exception of a conflict of interests concerning Cyrpriot offshore natural gas development, which the two countries have managed to compartmentalize, Italy and Turkey share a broad set of common interests across the wider Mediterranean basin, from the Balkans to North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
For all article;
A geopolitical symbiosis between Italy and Turkey is creating a Turkey-Italy-Tunisia transportation corridor that promises to reconfigure the patterns of trade between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Slicing across the center of the Mediterranean basin, the Turkey-Italy-Tunisia corridor forms an arc of commercial connectivity from the Maghreb to the wider Black Sea. The corridor's central hub is Italy's deep-sea port of Taranto, located on the Italian peninsula's southern tip in the strategic heart of the Mediterranean Sea. Managed by Turkish port operator Yilport, the Taranto port began servicing the Turkey-Italy-Tunisia corridor in early July 2020. The Taranto-Tunisia segment simultaneously forms the core link of the corridor's Europe-to-Africa transport route, by connecting North Africa's coast to the manufacturing centers of Italy, Germany, and northern Europe via Italy and Europe's high-speed rail systems. From Tunisia's ports, the corridor can also link via Algeria to the Trans-Saharan Highway, potentially extending Italy and Turkey's Europe-to-Africa corridor southward into West Africa as far as Lagos, Nigeria.
Incorporating Malta and Tunisia as key transit nodes, the corridor is also giving rise to a new Italo-Turkish-led geopolitical alignment anchored in the central Mediterranean basin. The new alignment is a geopolitical achievement for Italy’s rebalancing toward the wider Mediterranean basin where Rome has exerted its strategic autonomy, particularly in its pivot to Africa. In challenging France’s dominance in Africa, Italy has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey, which has concurrently sought to increase its influence in Africa. Creating a new strategic paradigm for Mediterranean geopolitics, the symbiosis between Rome and Ankara
Italy’s Mediterraneo Allargato Strategy and its Pivot to Africa While Italy maintains its traditional three foreign policy pillars – Europeanism, Atlanticism, and Mediterraneanism, Rome has been attempting to advance its global profile by becoming a central actor in the wider Mediterranean basin. Italy’s strategic framework views the Italian peninsula as the centerline around which exists a horseshoe-shaped geopolitical continuum, termed il Mediterraneo allargato (‘The enlarged Mediterranean’), formed by the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa on one side of the horsehoe and by the Balkans and Middle East on the other. Rome’s strategic priority to expand its economic and political presence in the regions of the Mediterraneo allargato constitutes a central organizing principle for Italy’s foreign relations.
Italy and Turkey’s Strategic Symbiosis in the Mediterranean Italy’s Mediterraneo allargato orientation enjoys a strategic synergy with Turkey’s own drive to develop inter-regional connectivity in the roughly overlapping geographical space defined by the former territories of the Ottoman empire. Italy has long been among the strongest advocates of closer EU-Turkey relations and the two enjoy a very robust trade relationship. After Germany, Italy forms the largest European market for Turkish exports, garnering Turkey $9.53 billion in revenue in 2019.5 With the exception of a conflict of interests concerning Cyrpriot offshore natural gas development, which the two countries have managed to compartmentalize, Italy and Turkey share a broad set of common interests across the wider Mediterranean basin, from the Balkans to North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
For all article;
