The Italian Prime Minister received on Sunday the full support of the President of the European Commission regarding the objective of the European Union to collaborate with African countries to stop the networks of traffickers that promote illegal immigration in the Mediterranean.
“It has become a lucrative business model for organized crime. They commercialize dreams and human lives. We must put an end to this cynical business model,” said the European leader during a speech in Rome, quoted by the EFE news agency.
The Italian capital hosted this Sunday a meeting between leaders and representatives of multilateral organizations to promote the immigration reform of the Italian far-right leader, Giorgia Meloni.
The call, announced under the title “International Conference on Development and Migration”, took advantage of the presence in Rome of numerous leaders of the United Nations Summit on Food Systems, which begins next week at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“We are united by the Mediterranean. But cooperation between the north and south, east and west of the Mediterranean has not always been the norm. We want to change this approach”, said the European leader.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, agreed with Meloni in defending a synergy between migration policy and development projects financed by the EU: the countries that receive aid are committed to strengthening the borders and, in turn, the economic boost in the countries of origin would prevent the exodus of people.
In this sense, he has declared that after “ending” dependence on Russia, the EU now looks to Africa as the main provider of clean energy: “The entire region has natural resources such as the sun, the wind and immense landscapes in abundance”.
For this reason, he asked Europe and Africa to establish a “new strategic association” based “on economic and human development, trade, investment and migration management.”
Minutes before, Meloni returned to the rhetoric against immigration to link it to development projects: “Much has been said about the right to emigrate, but we must also talk about the right not to migrate, not to leave home and family.”
The Italian prime minister spent months pushing forward an Italian investment program in Africa dubbed the “Mattei plan”, about which few details are known, and continued to strengthen ties with Algeria and Tunisia started by her predecessor Mario Draghi.
Von der Leyen, for his part, highlighted the Global Gateway program, the investment program of 300,000 million euros with which the EU wants to counteract China’s influence in developing countries.
Source: TSF
