Ursula von der Leyen verður á Lampedusa á morgun

Ursula von der Leyen will be in Italy today. The President of the European Commission will meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome as her spokesperson announced this morning on the sidelines of an event in Hanau. Meloni and von der Leyen would therefore intend to visit Lampedusa together, added the spokesperson. It is unclear exactly when the visit to the island is planned this weekend.

 

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen will visit the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday after 8,500 migrants arrived by boat in three days, an EU official announced.

 

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will travel on Sunday with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to the island of Lampedusa, where thousands of migrants have arrived this week, an EU official announced on Saturday.

Meloni had appealed to Brussels for help after some 8,500 people arrived by boat on this small Italian island in the Mediterranean, 145 kilometres off the coast of Tunisia, in three days this week. She said Europe needed a "paradigm change" in its approach to the migrant issue.

Italy's government has been holding an extraordinary meeting on the migrant crisis after Meloni called for a naval blockade of North Africa to deal with the issue.

 

 

Meloni had invited the head of the European Commission to visit Lampedusa with her to see the conditions firsthand and called for a new European Union migration deal with Tunisia to be put into effect.

"Obviously, Italy and Europe cannot welcome this massive influx of people, especially when these migrant flows are being managed by unscrupulous traffickers," she said

Fæddi barn á flótta til Lampedusa