Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Senate for communications in view of the European Council of 23 and 24 March.

The issue of immigration will certainly be on the table, «a first test case to which our government obtained a large part of the extraordinary Council meeting in February. We are facing an emergency that is becoming structural , this definition is the most realistic picture».

«The day after Cutro's misfortune – added the Prime Minister – I wrote to the President of the European Commission, to the President of the European Council and to the EU Council. To reiterate that we cannot wait any longer. We cannot wait helplessly for the next shipwreck , an inherent danger for trips organized by unscrupulous smugglers. The borders of Italy are the borders of Europe».

THE INTERVENTION:

«I want to reiterate it: before any hypothetical right to emigrate, every human being has the right not to be forced to migrate in search of a better life . It is exactly the aspect that Europe and the West have culpably neglected in recent years», he underlined.

Then he spoke of the NGOs: the EU indications ratify «the principle of the involvement of the flag States of the NGO ships in SAR operations, which must no longer be the burden only on the port States. The flag states that finance the NGOs must assume the responsibilities that the law of the sea assigns to them ».

On the war in Ukraine , "at the geopolitical and diplomatic level , pressure on Moscow is essential to ensure respect for international law and, even more so, to create the conditions for a negotiating path to achieve a just peace, conditions that have not yet been matured but which we still pursue with tenacity every day».