UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was due to meet Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Monday to discuss tackling illegal immigration, a day after another Channel migrant shipwreck claimed eight lives.
Starmer, whose centre-left Labour party was elected with a crushing parliamentary majority in July, has vowed to fight illegal immigration, a hot-button topic in British politics for years.
Far-right riots shook cities and towns across England and Northern Ireland shortly after Starmer’s election, the UK’s worst unrest since 2011, with mosques and migrant accommodation centres often targeted.
The perilous cross-Channel journeys migrants attempt from northern France have posed a fiendishly difficult problem to solve for successive British prime ministers.
Eight migrants died on Sunday after their overcrowded boat capsized in the Channel, bringing to 46 the number of people who have lost their lives this year trying to reach British shores.
Around 800 people crossed the Channel on Saturday, the second-highest figure since the start of the year, according to the UK interior ministry.
Starmer has rejected the previous Conservative government’s plan to expel all illegal migrants to Rwanda while their asylum claims are examined.
Instead, UK media say he is interested in the strategy of Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party and whose country is on the front line of the EU’s migration crisis.
Italy signed an agreement with Albania in November to open two centres in the Balkan country where migrants would be housed while their asylum claims are processed.
Italy will fund and manage the centres, which will be capable of accommodating up to 3,000 migrants who have arrived on Italian shores by boat.
Migrants with rejected asylum claims would be sent back to their country of origin, whereas those with accepted applications will be granted entry to Italy.
That is a key difference from the former UK government’s Rwanda scheme, whereby migrants sent to the East African nation could never have settled in Britain irrespective of the outcome of their claim.
‘It’s in early days, I’m interested in how that works, I think everybody else is,’ Starmer said of the Italian scheme in comments carried by British media.
Starmer said he and Meloni ‘have already discussed how we can improve joint operations, so that is something we will discuss’.
Their meeting is scheduled for midday (1000 GMT), according to Meloni’s office.
The newly appointed chief of the UK’s new Border Security Command, Martin Hewitt, will accompany Starmer during his trip to Italy, his office said.
Besides Albania, Meloni’s government has also inked a deal with Tunisia granting aid in exchange for greater efforts to stop Italy-bound migrants who leave the North African country and cross the Mediterranean.
Italy has also renewed a controversial deal with the UN-backed Libyan government in Tripoli, dating from 2017, in which Rome provides training and funding to the Libyan coastguard in order to stem departures of migrants or return to Libya those already at sea.
Human rights groups say the policy pushes thousands of migrants back to Libya to face torture and abuse under arbitrary detention.
Since the start of the year, migrant arrivals to Italy by sea have dropped markedly, according to the interior ministry.
Between January 1 and September 13, 44,675 people arrived in Italy compared to a figure of 125,806 for the same period in 2023.
Across all the EU borders, meanwhile, the number of migrants crossing has dropped by 39%, according to border agency Frontex.
But multiple factors are behind these trends, experts say, with many migrants seeking entry into the EU having changed their route.
While the Balkan and Central Mediterranean migration routes saw flows fall significantly by 77% and 64% respectively, the West African and Eastern land border routes recorded sharp increases, of 123% and 193% respectively.
Crossings are up 13% over the Channel this year, Frontex said.
source: AFP
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