Prime minister attends EU MED-9 Summit in Malta

Prevention of illegal migrations was the main topic of the summit meeting of the leaders of Mediterranean EU countries in Valletta, Malta, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Friday, noting that illegal migrations were causing serious political problems for many European countries.

The EU has vowed to work closer together to curb as much as possible the process of illegal migration, help the source countries, cooperate with transit countries and prevent smugglers from profiting on the misfortune of many while, at the same time, causing serious political problems for Europe.

"The goal of today's meeting was to strengthen the mechanisms we have available to us. The EU's foreign policy goals are to strengthen the security, development, economic, and humanitarian aspects of unstable countries. In other words, solve the problem of illegal migration at the source. We must strongly protect the EU's external border and find a unified legal solution to the problem," said the Croatian prime minister on Friday.

In addition to Prime Minister Plenković, the tenth EU MED-9 summit was attended by Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, French President Emmanuel Macron, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob, European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Plenković, Ursula von der Leyen and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob traveled together to Malta on Thursday aboard the Croatian government plane from Split following a major meeting of the European People's Party.