Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has called on the EU to use its leverage to get third countries to take back migrants entering the bloc illegally, according to ANSA news agency.
"If a third country refuses to cooperate on the readmission of its own citizens, the EU must be able to impose strict conditions across all sectors, using every lever at its disposal," Piantedosi reportedly told an emergency call of European interior ministers on Tuesday.
The meeting came after some 72,000 people crossed into the Spanish enclave in North Africa on Thursday and Friday. Madrid said "almost all" of those who entered Ceuta had since been returned to Morocco. Spanish authorities reported a provisional death toll of at least 75.
"We can no longer afford to have economic diplomacy operate on a separate track from cooperation on security and migration," Piantedosi also said.
He noted that the bloc can put new hub models "for the external management of asylum procedures and for repatriations to safe third countries into practice, overcoming the old ideological taboos of the past."
Piantedosi further stressed that Italy's decision to suspend the Schengen agreement with Spain by closing its air and sea borders amid the Ceuta crisis was "in no way a measure directed against Spain or any other partner."
"It is a precautionary and organizational decision, intended to safeguard national security and the integrity of the entire European control system at a time of significant strain, as has occurred in many other cases," he added, further voicing Italy's "sincere solidarity" with the Spanish government.
