"For 20 years now, the Italian coasts have been assaulted quite regularly by uncontrolled flows of illegal immigration, mainly from the African continent. So far the European Commission has failed in facing this problem and even its new proposals risk to be totally ineffective, if they do not start from this basic concept: migrants must not be sent on a journey across the Mediterranean that is dangerous for those who undertake it, harmful for those who receive them, and which only benefits the criminal business that constantly earn money from immigration.

It's a shame that what we suspected for years now has been confirmed, namely that some Member States finance NGOs to bring these people towards the Italian shores: we must stop this immediately, we have to go back to enforcing our borders and provide support to the countries where immigration originates, in order to solve the problem at its root.

Departures and arrivals can decrease, as Matteo Salvini has shown in 2018 and 2019 in the Italian Government; however, someone clearly has other interests, primarily economic, and so what we regularly see, particularly in the summer months, is allowed to persist.

The European Union should start from these basic principles if it really wants to curb migratory pressure, otherwise the situation will become increasingly unsustainable, primarily for Italy but also for other European countries."