Egypt’s Ambassador to Rome Bassam Radi on Sunday met with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli, who is currently visiting Italy at the head of the Egyptian delegation at the International Conference on Development and Migration.
The conference is being held at the Italian Foreign Ministry at the initiative of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Meanwhile, Italy has invited Mediterranean countries to Rome for an international conference to extend an EU-backed deal with Tunisia to curb the arrival of migrants to European shores.
The conference will cover means to control migration, combat human trafficking and promote economic development based on a new model of collaboration between states by planning and implementing initiatives and projects in agriculture, energy, infrastructure, education and training, healthcare, water and hygiene.
The conference is part of the Meloni government’s wide-ranging diplomatic efforts to deal with emergencies with an integrated approach to build a long-term, multi-dimensional partnership of equals.
During the 2022 election campaign that brought her to power, Meloni vowed to “stop the disembarkation” of migrants in Italy, which the government puts at nearly 80,000 coastal arrivals since January, compared to 33,000 in the same period last year.
However, while the government has put obstacles in the path of rescue vessels for migrants in the Mediterranean, it has failed to stop the departures, mostly from Tunisia and Libya.
Italy and the European Commission have sought to step up engagement with Tunisia, promising funding if the country undertakes to stem emigration from its territory.
Meloni has also sought to act as an intermediary between Tunisia, which is said to be seriously cash-strapped and on the cusp of a major debt crisis, and the International Monetary Fund, from which $2 billion bailout package for the North African country has stalled amid IMF demands for structural reforms.
According to the UN, more than 100,000 migrants arrived by sea to Europe — mostly to Italy — in the first six months of 2023, from the coasts of North Africa, Türkiye and Lebanon.
There were just over 189,000 such arrivals last year.
With fewer than 80,000 asylum applications registered last year, Italy lags behind Germany, France, Spain and Austria.
Madbouli will also be leading the Egyptian delegation at a conference called by the United Nations today to discuss food security issues.
The headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will be the venue for the event.
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