Rishi Sunak has praised his “fantastic” Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni as he announced the launch of a G7 coalition to tackle people-smuggling.
The prime minister, who is in Puglia in Italy for the G7 summit, said he and Meloni saw “eye to eye” on the issue and had spearheaded efforts to tackle it since they were elected.
In their final communique, G7 leaders committed to “enhanced cooperation to address migration, tackle the challenges and seize the opportunities that it presents” and launched a “G7 coalition to prevent and counter the smuggling of migrants”.
Sunak praised Meloni for her efforts and said there had never before been a dedicated G7 session to discuss migration.
“Giorgia is fantastic and she deserves enormous praise for having an incredibly successful G7 summit, and particularly to do it here in such a beautiful setting,” he said at a press conference at Borgo Egnazia golf club marking the conclusion of the meeting.
“I think the bilateral relationship between Italy and the UK at the moment is probably the strongest it’s been for as long as anyone can remember,” he added.
Sunak and Meloni have both sought to set up schemes to send asylum seekers abroad.
They have also established a good rapport and are close political allies. Meloni was one of a few major leaders to attend Sunak’s AI summit last year, and he addressed a festival in Rome organised by her Brothers of Italy party.
But their political paths now look likely to diverge. While Sunak is languishing in the polls and is widely expected to lose the general election in three weeks’ time, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy had a strong performance in the EU elections, winning almost 29% vote.
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“Giorgia and I have cooperated on illegal migration, something that she and I see eye-to-eye on,” Sunak told reporters. “Every country has slightly different challenges, different geographies. But fundamentally, she and I have recognised that this is a growing challenge that politicians need to be able to grip, and that’s what she and I worked together on since we both got these jobs.”
The prime minister also cited an agreement between the UK and Italy to build the next generation of fighter planes with Japan as an example of bilateral cooperation, and added that Meloni was a “lovely person and wonderful host”.
