Premier Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday
that European action was needed to stop the arrival of migrants
and avert the danger of another shipwreck like the February 26
one off the Calabrian town of Cutrio in which at least 87 people
died as she reported to the Senate ahead of this week's EU
summit.
"After the Cutro disaster, I wrote to the president of the
European Commission, the president of the European Council and
to the European Council to reiterate that we cannot wait any
longer," Meloni said.
"We cannot wait defencelessly for the next shipwreck, a danger
which, I insist, is caused by crossings organized by
unscrupulous human traffickers.
"Italy's borders are Europe's borders".
She said the approach should be to find ways to stop migrants
and refugees being forced to try to reach Europe in the first
place.
"Before the the hypothetical right to emigrate, every human
must have the right not to be forced to migrate to seek a better
life," she said.
"This is precisely the aspect that Europe and the West have
culpably neglected in recent years".
She recalled that the Italian government had successfully got
the issue of migration at the top of the agenda of the
extraordinary European Council summit held last month.
"We are faced with an emergency that is becoming structural,"
she said.
She also commented on the activities of NGO-run migrant-rescue
ships operating in the Mediterranean, saying countries whose
flags those ships fly should be involved in managing the people
rescued, not just Italy, which is usually the State the vessels
request assign them a port of safety because of its geographic
position.
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