If the European Union give up its leading role in the Mediterranean region, other powers are bound to fill the resulting vacuum, Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio warned on Friday
"If the EU renounces its role as a main actor the Mediterranean, the power vacuum that we leave will inexorably be filled by others," Di Maio told the 'Shared Security, Priorities for EU action' session of the Mediterranean Dialogues virtual forum.
The conference session was also attended by his French and Spanish counterparts Jean-Yves Le Drian and Arancha Gonzalez Laya, Germany's foreign minister of state Niels Annen and Polish under-secretary of state Marcin Przydacz.
"In a broader geopolitical perspective, with an enlarged more orderly and less polarized Mediterranean stemming from cooperation between blocs of countries that from the region we can better protect the key shipping routes that pass through it," Di Maio went on.
"And above all, it limits the scope for action by external powers."
