Rishi Sunak to meet with Italy's Giorgia Meloni as EU in desperate bid to curb migration
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Rishi Sunak will meet his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome this weekend for bilateral talks on migration.
As many as 11 EU countries have rebelled against EU policies on border checks in the face of growing concerns about illegal migration.
Countries including Italy, France, Slovakia, Sweden and Germany have re-instated border restrictions including identity vetting, passport checks, police interviews, static checkpoints and vehicle inspections.
Germany introduced new checks at its border with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland earlier this year and has seen a significant drop in the number of illegal crossings.
Rishi Sunak will meet his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome this weekend for bilateral talks on migration
PA
Such restrictions on movement were abandoned many years ago as part of the Schengen Treaty.
But they are now viewed by a number of countries as being essential to stop "infiltration" by terrorists posing as migrants.
Downing Street said Sunak's meeting with Meloni would focus on the "shared challenges" of migration
A spokesperson said: "They have talked before as G7 leaders about the challenge that Europe is facing on migration, particularly on illegal migration.
"Obviously, Italy are very much at the forefront of that on the borders of Europe.
"So these are very much shared challenges. They have expressed shared perspectives in how to look at that.
"Italy are one of the number of European countries that are exploring partnerships similar to that, that we have with Rwanda.
"So it’s important as ever that G7 partners continue to work for solutions."
Italy escalated its own internal border checks with neighbouring Slovenia as part of an attempt to reduce the "increased threat of violence within the EU", which the country believes has escalated since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
Italy said the changes were necessary as a result of the growing risk of terrorists arriving due to "constant migratory pressure from land and sea".
In the wake of Italy's border checks, Slovenia did the same with its borders with Hungary and Croatia, claiming it faces the same issues as Italy.
Slovenia also claimed to be facing "threats to public order and internal security".
Meanwhile, Sweden has warned it is conducting checks at all its border points to combat terrorism.
Andrej Plenkovic, the prime minister of Croatia, backed the move by other European countries.
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He said: "The EU is surrounded by a series of very big crises... bigger than any time in the past 30 years.
"We have Putin's aggression against Ukraine, Hamas's attack on Israel, all this in the context of intensified flows of illegal migration."
And last month, Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister of Hungary, issued a warning to the EU over its migration policy.
He said: "If Brussels does not change its migration policy, we could find ourselves where we do not want to be: in an era of Europe torn apart by old borders."
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