Meloni and Macron hold bilateral in Brussels

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 24 - Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni met bilaterally with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday night on the sidelines of the EU Summit underway in Brussels.
    The meeting reportedly lasted one hour 40 minutes.
    The leaders are said to have discussed the management of migrant arrivals to Europe, support to Ukraine, European industrial policy, the green energy transition and reform of the EU's Stability and Growth Pact.
    It was the second meeting between Meloni and Macron since the Italian premier and leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party took office last October, and the first since recent tensions between the two countries after Italy turned away a humanitarian ship operated by a French charity carrying 230 rescued migrants in November and Macron invited his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to Paris on the eve of a European summit in February, a move that Meloni described ad as "inappropriate".
    Earlier at the summit the Italian Premier sounded the alarm on Tunisia.
    "If the country collapses we risk a humanitarian disaster with 900,000 refugees," a top EU source reported her as saying.
    If the trend of increased sea arrivals continues, "this summer the situation will be out of control," she added.
    Meloni said it is "necessary to strengthen cooperation with countries of origin and transit, (introduce) concrete measures against traffickers, and offer more possibilities for legal entry" for migrants. (ANSA).