“I am satisfied, we are far from being isolated,” she told reporters on arriving for the third meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) in Granada, Spain.
“The perception is evolving towards the protection of legal migration flows,” she added after the 27 EU members states on Wednesday reached agreement on the key text on crisis regulation in the Union’s new pact on migration and asylum, in what Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani later described as a “success for Italy”.
Meloni also said Italy “wants there to be a non-paternalistic approach” to Africa, calling for “a Europe that believes in it as a whole”.
The PM reiterated that she “understood” Tunisian President Kais Saied after he rejected a 127-million-euro aid package from the EU on grounds Tunisia “does not accept anything resembling charity or favour, because our country and our people do not want sympathy and do not accept it when it is without respect”, according to a press release.
“I believe that Saied, with whom I have a good relationship, spoke first of all to his public opinion, I understand what he said,” said Meloni.
“Tunisia has a problem that is no different from ours, there is illegal immigration there too,” she continued.
On the government’s ‘Mattei Plan’ to boost energy partnerships with African countries and cooperation on halting migrant flows, Meloni said it had “reached a point of arrival with a regulation on governance”, adding that she would present the plan to parliament in November.
Meloni also said she was due to have a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday.
“It will be an opportunity to discuss how to make progress particularly on the external dimension” of migration management through the strengthening of cooperation with countries of origin and transit.
On Monday sources said contacts were underway between Berlin and Rome at a technical level to try to resolve a row over German funding of NGOs carrying out search and rescue in the central Mediterranean and disembarking rescued migrants and refugees in Italy.
A bilateral between Meloni and Scholz at the EPC meeting in Spain later in the week would depend on the progress of the technical contacts underway, the sources added.
ANSA
