Strengthen the dialogue and strategic cooperation between Italy and the United Kingdom in full coherence and complementarity with the Italian accession to the EU.
This is the objective, according to Italian sources, of a Memorandum of understanding signed by the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, on the occasion of Meloni’s visit to London.
The agreement organizes joint initiatives in priority areas of collaboration (security and defence, energy, climate and environment, migration, economy, science and innovation) and makes it possible to consolidate broad convergences with London on an international level.
The signing of an agreement on bilateral cooperation, it is explained, “crowns the excellent state of relations between the two nations and relaunches the all-round strategic dialogue with a key partner and ally such as the United Kingdom, especially in the light of the multiple challenges global level, especially Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which poses a real threat to security and common values”. Italy and the United Kingdom, underline Italian sources, are united by a historic friendship as well as strong economic ties and share a common vision on many international issues starting from the strong commitment to the security and stability of Europe, the Euro-Atlantic and of the wider international community through a multilateral approach with the United Nations at its core.
“It’s a new beginning” in relations between Italy and the United Kingdom. Thus the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, addressed the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, before the bilateral meeting in Downing Street. “I am very happy to be here-she added-she, I am convinced that we can do a good job together”. “Thanks, Giorgia, welcome to London”, Sunak told her in Italian, then thanking her also in English, in front of cameras and photographers: “It’s a great pleasure to have you here”.
“The fight against traffickers and illegal immigration is something that the two governments are doing very well: I am following your work and I absolutely agree with your work”, said the Prime Minister again.
“The values of the United Kingdom and Italy are aligned”, said the British prime minister in the meeting in Downing Street with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The prime minister added that the two countries are collaborating on the same challenges, such as the illegal invasion of Ukraine and the fight against illegal immigration, recalling the close “friendship” between London and Rome, NATO allies. He cited military collaboration under the Global Combat Air Program and said there is “a lot to discuss today” to strengthen ties between the two countries. Sunak concluded in Italian: “Thank you Giorgia, welcome to London”.
The longest visit to a European country: Giorgia Meloni is in London, with the delegation in tow, for a two-day visit. The Italian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Inigo Lambertini, welcomed her at the airport.
Meloni and Sunak had already met in November, on the sidelines of the Cop27 in Sharm el Sheikh, a few weeks after both took office and with whom they shared their international debut at the G20 in Bali.
Meloni then left Downing Street at the end of the bilateral meeting which lasted about two hours. With Sunak they are on their way to Westminster. The premier got into the car with Sunak without answering the Italian reporters who asked her if she had any intention of bringing forward the return to Rome given what happened in the Chamber on the Def.
Italy-GB Memorandum, on ,Migrants ‘Change of Pace’
A “strategic partnership” between Italy and the United Kingdom to contain immigration and favor a breakthrough in international cooperation against the “illegal trafficking” of human beings: denounced as an emergency. There is also this in the post-Brexit bilateral memorandum of understanding between Italy and the United Kingdom signed in London by Giorgia Meloni and Rishi Sunak, conservative leaders of the military service of forty-year-olds who have been in government for a few months, protagonists of a conversation in Downing Street under the banner of a generalized harmony that on the question of migrants borders on the identity of views: the result of a situation in which the two countries are exposed respectively on the Mediterranean route of landings and on that of the Channel.
The memorandum is a sort of framework document divided into numerous points and 7 chapters preceded by a premise on the “shared values” exalted by Rishi when welcoming “Giorgia” (complete with a smiling embrace and welcome in Italian) as the natural fruit of “decades of friendship” between the island and the peninsula. Friendship consolidated by the common belonging “to the G7 and to NATO”, by the alignment on the response to the crises of the present (primarily the hard line in front of Russia for the “illegal invasion of Ukraine”), and reaffirmed – even after the divorce of London from Brussels – from the very recent formalization of the joint project of a new next generation European fighter. The text includes sections on strengthening cooperation in foreign policy, global security and defense; climate change, energy and the environment; justice and police investigations; of democracy and the promotion of dialogue with civil societies around the world; economic policy, science and innovation.
But a separate chapter is dedicated solely to the alarm on migration, separate from everything else. As if to underline the specific political (as well as electoral) sensitivity of the two governments on the matter: recently addressed in both countries with legislative and political initiatives – as stringent as they are severe in intention – which have not failed to arouse debate, disputes and even heated controversies . The chapter is divided into 5 challenging steps. The first evokes the common recognition “of the importance of urgently countering the challenge of illegal immigration”; the second announces the willingness to coordinate to increase cooperation both on a bilateral scale and in relations between the United Kingdom, the EU, Frontex and various international agencies; the third explicitly refers to the shared objective of “a change of pace in our approach to migration policy”, which aims to make its external dimension “a priority” as a “structural solution to prevent illegal migration and stabilize flows”; the fourth relaunches the strategy of helping countries of origin, starting “from Africa and the Balkans”, in order to “tackle the root causes” of the phenomenon with joint actions to support development; finally, point 5 outlines the prospect of giving “a concrete follow-up” to these indications of principle by “rapidly defining a series of specific initiatives on immigration through an ad hoc Strategic Partnership” between Rome and London.
This article is originally published on ansa.it
