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.
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