Meloni warns Russia may use migrants to destabilize Europe

This is reported by Reuters.

"We have to understand the threat is much wider than we imagine," Meloni stressed.

According to her, the threat to the security of the EU from Russia or other countries will not stop after the end of the war in Ukraine, and the EU must be ready for this.

"It's about our democracy, it's about influencing our public opinion, it's about what happens in Africa, it's about raw materials, it's about the instrumentalisation of migration. We need to know it's a very wide idea of security," she explained.

Meloni called on the EU to take additional measures to protect its external borders and prevent Russia from manipulating the flow of illegal migrants.

Some EU members, including Finland and Estonia, have accused Russia of allowing illegal migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere to enter EU countries via Russia without proper checks, undermining EU security. Russia denies that it is deliberately sending illegal migrants to Europe.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo also stressed the importance of protecting the country's 1,340-kilometre border with Russia, calling it an "existential" issue for Finland and other EU members and NATO allies.

Meloni said the EU had made a mistake on migration by focusing exclusively on solidarity without effective control mechanisms.

"Tackling the issue of illegal immigration solely as a solidarity-based debate was a mistake," she said. "The result is that we have been unable to protect our borders ... We want to defend our external borders and we will not allow Russia or criminal organisations to undermine our security."

While NATO remains the cornerstone of the EU's security, Meloni added that the bloc must address broader issues such as critical infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and supply chains to adapt its foreign and cooperation policies to modern challenges.

• In November, the Netherlands decided to temporarily reintroduce internal border controls to limit the flow of illegal migrants and smugglers into the country.