And a united Europe will also manage to send hundreds of thousands of migrants, who don't have the right to asylum, back to their homelands. Though that, given the number of flights necessary, would be of a scale reminiscent of the Berlin Airlift.

And a united Europe will also manage to send hundreds of thousands of migrants, who don't have the right to asylum, back to their homelands. Though that, given the number of flights necessary, would be of a scale reminiscent of the Berlin Airlift.

We cannot treat people with a right to asylum the same way as people from a safe country. They need to be sent back. That is, from our perspective, completely clear. On the other hand, we should scrutinize the now completely outdated principle that only the migrants' first country of arrival should be burdened with their registration as well as with the process of sorting out who has the right to asylum and who needs to be deported.

The message that "we can't take in everybody" is imperative. At the same time, the decision as to who has a right to asylum needs to be made in Brussels.

There are differences of opinion, especially when it comes to economic and financial policy. But when it comes to foreign and especially immigration policy, we are in agreement. No other countries in Europe are closer to each other in this regard than Italy and Germany.

It is clear that several countries, in the Balkans for example, need to be considered countries of safe origin. But others like, in my opinion, Eritrea, undoubtedly need to be considered a country of origin with a valid claim to asylum. And with a third group of states, like Nigeria for example, each individual case needs to be evaluated. Then there are also very controversial cases like Afghanistan. In any case, united European action is needed. This argument for Europeanization may sound utopian, but there is no alternative.

As long as a certain problem primarily affects a different country, in this case Italy, one might not put it at the very top of one's list of priorities.