British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni met in Rome on Sept. 16 to discuss how to reduce the number of migrant boat arrivals in their two countries.
Starmer’s visit to the Eternal City occurred after at least eight migrants died off the French coast over the weekend attempting to cross the English Channel.
The UK’s new Labour prime minister promised “a new era” in cross-border cooperation, including tackling the smuggling of gangs, during his trip, which is part of what he has termed a “reset” in ties with the rest of Europe.
Starmer has put renewing ties with EU leaders at the top of his diplomatic agenda since his election victory in July, and his visit to Rome follows trips to Berlin, Paris, and Dublin.
He has scrapped the previous government’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, but he has not ruled out arrangements that would see asylum claims processed offshore, similar to an agreement Italy has struck with Albania.
“We’re interested in the work that Italy and Albania are doing, but that is at an early stage,” UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told ITV.
“What we’re more interested in is the workaround organized immigration crime, the smuggling, the trafficking gangs, because that’s delivering results straight away.”
On Sept. 15, French authorities said eight people had died trying to cross the Channel to the UK after their boat got into difficulty, bringing the death toll in attempted crossings to 46 since the start of the year. The same day, 14 boats carrying 801 migrants reached Britain.
Starmer’s government has said it will step up deportation flights and use money saved from the Rwanda scheme to help law enforcement tackle the crossings.
In Italy, Starmer visited the National Coordination Centre for Migration to discuss Italy’s approach to the issue, which has seen a 60 percent drop in irregular arrivals by sea.
“Here there’s been some quite dramatic reduction so I want to understand how that came about,” Starmer said, adding that he wanted to know more about “upstream” work to stop people from making their journeys.
Migration has increasingly become an issue in the UK, and Starmer has said he hopes Italy’s tough approach can help him stop people trying to cross the English Channel in flimsy, overcrowded boats.
More than 22,000 migrants have crossed from France so far this year, more than in the same period in 2023.
Meloni pledged a crackdown on migration after taking office in 2022, aiming to deter migrants from paying people smuggling gangs to ferry them across the Mediterranean.
Her conservative government has signed deals with individual African countries to block departures, imposed limits on the work of NGO rescue ships, and cracked down on traffickers.
Rome also has signed a deal with Tirana, under which some adult male migrants rescued at sea trying to reach Italy would be taken to Albania while their asylum claims are processed.
Italy’s approach has been criticized by some refugee advocates and left-wing groups, and the leader of Italy’s right-wing League party, Matteo Salvini, who is deputy prime minister in Meloni’s government, has been accused by prosecutors of kidnapping for his decision to prevent a rescue ship carrying more than 100 migrants from landing in Italy when he was interior minister in 2019.
Ukraine will also feature in Starmer’s talks with Meloni, whose government holds the G7 presidency this year.
Meloni has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, and Starmer recently traveled to Washington, where he and U.S. President Joe Biden discussed Kyiv’s plea to use Western-supplied missiles against targets deep inside Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites inside Russia as Moscow steps up assaults on Ukraine’s electricity grid and utilities before winter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that would mean NATO countries “are at war with Russia.”
