Press Releases

The 5^th Southern EU Countries Summit was held today, 29 January 2019, at the Filoxenia Conference Center, in Lefkosia. The Summit was hosted by the President of the Republic, Mr Nicos Anastasiades, with the participation of the President of the Republic of France, Mr Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Ministers of the Republic of Malta, Mr Joseph Muscat, the Hellenic Republic, Mr Alexis Tsipras, the Republic of Italy, Mr Giuseppe Conte, the Republic of Portugal, Me Antonio Costa, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Spain, Mr Josep Borrell Fontelles.

Following the deliberations of the Summit, the six Heads of State and Government and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Spain, made statements to the Press.

Speaking in Italian, through interpretation in English, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Italy, Mr Giuseppe Conte, said:

“First of all allow me to warmly thank President Anastasiades, my friend Nicos for this very warm welcome. It has been 29 years since an Italian Head of Government has not come to Cyprus and I am very happy to be here. Unfortunately, I will not be able to stay on for dinner, I have to go back. Nevertheless, I would like to say that this afternoon during the Summit, we had the opportunity to be very frank and very open in our discussions.

We have touched on migration expressing our stance. Clearly it is an issue that presents a major challenge for Europe. It is a challenge that might lead Europe to implode, feeling the reaching of joint vision, joint agreement.

In the Conclusions of the European Council last June, we heard quite clearly the stance based on solidarity and shared responsibility. It is there that we expressed quite clearly that the principles that anyone setting foot in any European country, actually sets foot in Europe as a whole. We acknowledged that fact that we have not been able to resolve the major issues touching the countries of the European South. Our countries have a shared sensitivity and we have to work in order to find common solutions.

I do not need to remind you that it is Article 80 of the EU Treaty that talks about solidarity and fair sharing of burden. So, considering and acknowledging the fact that we have in part failed to give an answer to this problem, we should not be surprised to see our citizens turning our back to Europe. In Italy once again, we are facing a crisis, a crisis that shows how Europe is unable to single fund the problem. The Media have taken it and exploded, confirming the fears of our citizens. This situation shows that we lack synchronization when dealing with these crucial matters. It is a complex phenomenon, it is true. It touches also on the way we deal with the African continent, that is the countries of origin of these migrants. We have to work on the development of a new model of cooperation. We have to invest in Africa. The Trust Fund for Africa has only few million of euros and this kind of money is not sufficient, in order to set up a real policy that will tackle the problem. I myself have travelled in Africa, in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and very soon I am going to Morocco. By doing that I am trying to understand the situation there and bring this knowledge back to Europe, so as to develop sensitivity in the European countries to what needs to be done to solve the problems at the root.

Today’s meeting also gave us the opportunity to talk about a number of other issues, such as Brexit, the Multiannual Financial Framework and European Energy Security, governance in the Eurozone and so on so forth.

We adopted a Declaration, which, as it happened in the previous four Summits, wanted to highlight a common ground existing in our countries of the Southern Europe in relation to the challenges facing the whole of Europe.

So, what I am asking you is to go beyond words. We have a historical duty, we have responsibility towards our citizens. We have to adopt tangible initiatives, so that our people start believing again in Europe, the EU. Italy is one of the founding members and it has a historical duty to do its best, so that the EU has a better future and be able to deal with all the challenges it will meet in the future”.

(MKY)