Melons: "Preserve the Schengen area only if the EU borders are defended"

“The next European Council must return to addressing the issues of energy costs and must do so with more courage and completeness”. Prime Minister Meloni said this after receiving Belgian Prime Minister De Wever at Palazzo Chigi. “The very strong impact – explained the Prime Minister – that the international situation, in particular in Hormuz, is having on the cost of fuel, the cost of fertilizers, the cost of raw materials, and how much all this is weighing on our citizens, on our businesses, is clearly there for all to see”. “We therefore agree with Prime Minister De Wever – observed the Prime Minister – that the next European Council must return to addressing the issues of competitiveness, the issues of energy costs, and that it must do so with more courage and greater concreteness. We will also work together on this point”. “You know that together” with Belgium “we animate a table of ‘like-minded’ member states, that is, those who have the same positions on competitiveness, together with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and therefore we agree on the need to convene this table before the next European Council”, Meloni further observed.

The topic of migrants and Schengen

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever also spoke about the topic of immigration in the meeting held at Palazzo Chigi. From the point of view of migratory flows – the Prime Minister explained in her statements to the press – “we have had a very eventful summer which calls into question the European ability to respond to crises on this matter. I remain firmly convinced that it is possible to preserve the Schengen area in the best possible way only if the external borders of the EU are defended, only if all member states continue to do their part in the fight against traffickers and mass illegal immigration”.

“The next budget must be up to the new challenges”

Regarding the question “of the next multiannual financial framework and therefore the budget of the European Union, the negotiations are getting to the heart of things, we remain convinced that we must arrive at a result that is worthy of the new challenges it is called upon to face”. “We believe that Cohesion and the CAP are the precondition for strengthening competitiveness in Europe”, he observed.