The European Union should putting priority on stopping migration, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday in Warsaw, where she met with her Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawieczki. Ahead of the upcoming NATO summit, the two leaders also agreed that Ukraine needs real security guarantees from the organisation.
The EU should consider stopping illegal migration a priority instead of attempting to convince the 27 member states to share responsibility for the people arriving illegally in the EU, PM Meloni emphasized.
On 8 June, Poland and Hungary vetoed a statement, backed by most member states, that introduces a mandatory solidarity mechanism to help the front-line countries of migration and sets out that the member states are obliged to take over migrants from the countries in which they arrive in the highest numbers, or pay a fine if they reject it.
Morawiecki said it was “fundamental” to his government to have the EU’s external borders “insulated” and that it also opposed a provision in the June agreement that calls for fining countries that refuse to host a share of asylum-seekers €20,000 per person.
After the meeting, Meloni said she thinks the bloc will never be able to “find a real solution” to the situation once migrants are already in Europe.
I believe our position is substantially the same. We want to stop illegal immigration,
Meloni said.
Regarding regional security issues and next week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, Meloni said that "we are in perfect agreement with Poland on the need for real security guarantees for Ukraine," which she said was "a key condition for the achievement in the future of a just and long-lasting peace."
Meloni reiterated that Italy will keep giving "all round support" to Ukraine "for as long as necessary", and said "this also applies to the upcoming Vilnius summit".
Earlier, Ukraine asked NATO to declare in the summit starting on 11 June that Kyiv can join the organization after the war, and to define a schedule for granting the membership.
The two leaders also made speeches at the Warsaw conference of the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR), the European Parliament’s group including Meloni’s party, the Italian Brothers (FdI) and Morawieczki’s Law and Justice (PiS) party.
In a panel about the future of the European Union, Georgia Meloni opined that it was in the interest of the whole of Europe that the ruling conservative Law and Justice party continued to lead Poland.
Cover photo: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hold a press conference in Warsaw on 5 July 2023 (Photo: MTI/AP/Czarek Sokolowski)
