The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloniand the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunakpublished today a joint letter in the newspaper “Corriere della Sera“in which they express their common position for stop migrant landings. “Every week, thousands of migrants cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy, illegally entering Europe. Many head north to reach the United Kingdom. That’s why we work together to stop the boats and we ask everyone to act with the same sense of urgency,” the two leaders write in the letter.

Both claim that it is a “ethical crisis with criminal gangs who benefit from the misery of the most vulnerable” and “a humanitarian crisis, with shipwrecks that have already claimed more than 2,000 lives this year. And it is a European crisis as the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, pointed out.”

“It is the States that decide who arrives in Europe, not the smugglers and traffickers,” they claim. “Only stopping the flow of illegal migrants we will be able to protect the historical role of our two nations as places of asylum and refuge. “How can we take care of those who really need our help, when our reception systems are under so much pressure?” they add. They assure that “only by stopping the flow of irregular migrants we can restore the trust of citizens British and Italian, not only on our national borders, but also in European and international cooperation.

They advance that the determination of both countries “is already bearing fruit” and “has caused a radical change in the debate throughout Europe. Therefore, in cooperation with our European partners and neighbors, We are open to discussing new provisions to stop the departures.” To conclude, they announce that “during next autumn we will meet again when the United Kingdom hosts the first Global Artificial Intelligence Security Summit.

And in 2024, with the Italian presidency of the G7 and the UK hosting the next meeting of the European Political Community, we will put pressing issues like these – from illegal migration to the war in Ukraine to artificial intelligence – at the top of the international agenda”. Both leaders organized this Thursday in Granada (southern Spain), during the summit of the European Political Community, a meeting to address multilateral initiatives against trafficking in human beings in which the president of the Commission also participated. European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.