Finland and Italy join efforts to counter instrumentalization of migration

Finland and Italy will put forward joint initiatives to promote a consistent approach on the external dimension of migration policies and countering migration-related malign influence.

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Elina Valtonen, and Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy Antonio Tajani met on 29 November in Brussels in the margins of the NATO meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. 

The ministers announced that Finland and Italy will put forward joint initiatives to promote a consistent approach on the external dimension of migration policies and countering migration-related malign influence in all fora. These include fighting against people smuggling and countering the instrumentalization of migration. These shared challenges extend from the North to the South of Europe. 

Finland and Italy will launch work on a set of ideas for developing a robust toolbox for strengthening the mechanisms of NATO and the EU, including the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex for countering hybrid threats. 

“Russia and other hostile actors are instrumentalizing migration and ruthlessly exploiting third country citizens. Transatlantic determination is paramount in countering this activity. Italy and Finland work jointly to advance this goal in the framework of both EU and NATO,“ says Minister Valtonen. 

“We are extremely concerned about the rising number of irregular migrants especially in the central Mediterranean Route. Third actors might be interested in instrumentalizing these flows to destabilize our societies and hamper our common endeavor to manage migration and asylum procedures. We must develop tools to prevent this,” says Minister Tajani.