The Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, met the Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, Chaudhry Salik Hussain in Rome on September 17, the two had previously also met in Islamabad in May to discuss migration policy, quotas and the possibility for legal routes to Italy.

"We are working on a new policy for migration flows that looks to the future of legal migration," stated Piantedosi.

Piantedosi promised that Italy was seeking to reward countries who worked alongside it in preventing irregular migration, by offering additional quotas for those countries so that citizens could enter Italy via legal routes. "Over the next three years from 2026-2028, we will continue to reward supplementary quotas for those countries that, like Pakistan, are making an effort to contrast irregular migration," he added.

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'A zero tolerance approach towards illegal migration'

Piantedosi said the two countries were building on agreements signed during Italy's visit to Pakistan in May. "The Memorandum on Migration and Mobility that we signed during my visit to Pakistan in May, is developing into a more significant framework of our cooperation, based on stopping human smugglers and cooperation to favor training courses prior to departure," explained Piantedosi.

"I shared with the Pakistani Minister the zero tolerance approach for illegal migration, and I appreciated the numerous initiatives the government of Islamabad has undertaken to reach this result, among the measures taken are an awareness campaign that underscores the numerous risks of clandestine migration," he added.

"I am convinced that the political and operational dialog we have launched in recent months represents only the beginning of a common path with enormous potential."

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'The CPRs in Albania are needed and will be needed in the future'

On the same day, while a guest on a TV show, Piantedosi said that the repatriation centers in Albania "are needed and will be needed in the future: they are a first example of what Europe is trying to affirm," and Albania "is an EU accession country candidate, a country which should be included in the EU."

"Next year, new European regulations on migration should enter into force", recalled Piantedosi. The Minister stated that this way even the judicial issues that have hindered Italy's full use of the centers in Albania will cease.

Piantedosi has been trying to underline this week that due to his government's migration policies, things are looking positive, especially when compared to 2023, the first year after the government took office.

The minister stated that last year "the numbers [of arrivals] diminished, and this figure was confirmed this year: we have a stable decrease that registers minus 60 percent compared to the figures of 2023."

Despite this trend, the Minister said he believed "too many of them arrive, from my point of view." And said that the people who were arriving were still "generating a lucrative business for smugglers."

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