Starmer to contribute €4.75m to Meloni’s anti-illegal migration plan

Following a meeting with his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to add about €4.75 million to her initiative to help stem irregular migration.

The funding is a part of Meloni’s “Rome Process”, an agreement signed in July 2023 as part of European efforts to “externalise” migrant controls by outsourcing them to third countries.

The Rome Process pledges to tackle the root causes of illegal migration — including conflict, economic hardship and climate change — and crack down on migrant smugglers.

After their meeting on Monday, Starmer praised Meloni for the “remarkable progress” Italy has made in reducing the number of migrants reaching its shores by boat.

The centre-left British leader is not a natural ally of Meloni, who heads up the far-right Brothers of Italy Party, but as illegal migration continues to top the UK’s political agenda, Starmer said he was attempting to learn how Italy’s government has managed to tackle the issue so effectively.

“You’ve made remarkable progress working with countries along migration routes as equals, to address the drivers of migration at source and to tackle the gangs. As a result, irregular arrivals to Italy by sea are down 60% since 2022,” Starmer told Meloni at their joint press conference in Rome.

“So I am pleased that we are deepening our cooperation here … to share intelligence, share tactics, shut down smugglers’ routes and smash the gangs.”

Meloni echoed Starmer’s sentiments and said the UK prime minister had expressed interest in “new solutions” such as the Albania deal.

“We talked about the Italy-Albania agreement, which is a solution that the British government is showing a lot of interest in, and clearly we have offered them all the elements to better understand this mechanism that has been one of the new changes the Italian government has brought in the politics of migration flows”, Meloni said.

Amnesty International has criticised Rome’s decision to open processing centres for asylum seekers in neighbouring Albania, calling them “a stain on the Italian government”.

Crackdown under fire

More than 22,000 migrants have crossed from France into the UK so far this year, a slight increase from the same period in 2023.

Meanwhile, several dozen people have died while attempting to cross, including the eight killed when a boat carrying about 60 people ran aground on rocks late on Saturday.

In stark contrast, the number of migrants arriving in Italy by boat in the first half of this year was down 60% from 2023, according to the country’s Interior Ministry.

Meloni pledged a crackdown on migration after taking office in 2022, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Italy.

Her government has signed deals with individual African countries, including Tunisia, to block departures, imposed limits on the work of humanitarian rescue ships, cracked down on traffickers, and taken measures to deter people from setting off.

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Italy also has signed a deal with Albania under which some adult male migrants rescued at sea while trying to reach Italy would be taken instead to Albania while their asylum claims are processed.

However, Italian prosecutors in Palermo revealed on Saturday they were seeking a six-year prison sentence for Meloni’s deputy PM, far-right Lega leader Matteo Salvini, for his role in the 2019 refusal to allow a humanitarian NGO ship carrying migrants to dock near Lampedusa.

Salvini, who has since received full support from the Italian premier and his coalition partner, will have his case heard in October.