The European Union needs to boost cooperation with transit counties in the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa after MEPs backed a landmark reform last week which tightens the bloc's migration and asylum rules, Italy has said.
"We must now work on the external dimension, strengthening cooperation with the transit countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the southern Mediterranean at all levels," foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.
"This includes at the European level and with the G7 countries," Tajani told his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne on the sidelines of a G7 foreign ministers' meeting on Capri.
NGOs, far-right and far-left parties have criticised the EU Asylum and Migration Pact, which the bloc took eight years to approve with a knife-edge series of votes on 10 April in the European Parliament.
The controversial, wide-reaching deal is designed to speed up the asylum process at the EU's borders and return more irregular migrants to their home countries.
The pact also requires EU member states to share responsibility for asylum seekers.
Some 380,000 illegal immigrants entered the EU last year - the highest number since 2016.
