Serbia should be in the EU: Italian PM

Rome: Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Europe would not be ‘truly united’ until Western Balkan applicants joined the EU, during her Belgrade visit.

Six Western Balkans countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – are hoping to join the wealthy bloc.

Meloni said Serbia could count on Italy’s support for its membership, highlighting migration as one of the areas where they could work together.

“I think that Europe is not a club in which someone decides who is European and who is not, it is history and geography which decides who is European, and I think that the European institutions have to carry out a process which is serious and is as fast as possible”, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni said.

Italy is also planning to open two camps in Albania next spring, one to screen migrants on arrival and a second to detain them while asylum applications are processed, and hopes they can process as many as 3,000 cases a month.