In the following video Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni answers journalists’ questions about the agreement on immigration between the European Commission and Tunisia, and other North African matters. Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.
Note: Giulio Regeni, who is mentioned by the journalist asking the question, was an Italian university graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt in early 2016. Patrick George Zaki is a Coptic Egyptian postgraduate student who was recently sentenced to prison in Egypt, and then pardoned by President al-Sisi.
Video transcript:
| 00:02 | You met President Sayed four times in the last two months. | |
| 00:05 | You have committed yourself a lot, to this kind of relationship. | |
| 00:09 | You must have seen the images of women and children | |
| 00:12 | who died at the borders, because of cruel expulsions. | |
| 00:15 | I wanted to ask you whether you will subject the agreement, the resources with Tunisia, | |
| 00:18 | to the respect of human rights, and whether you had the opportunity to talk to him about it. | |
| 00:21 | And then, since you have also spoken with the Egyptian Premier today, | |
| 00:25 | and in the past few days with Al-Sisi, I wanted to ask you whether, | |
| 00:28 | in addition to talking about investments, | |
| 00:31 | and thanking him for pardoning Patrick Zaki, you have also raised the issue | |
| 00:36 | about the search for truth and justice for Giulio Regeni. Given that you did not speak about that | |
| 00:39 | in these interventions, the public statements | |
| 00:42 | you have made, whether you consider it a dismissed case. Thank you. | |
| 00:46 | Thank you. I do not consider it a dismissed case, of course. | |
| 00:50 | I keep dealing with it, as I have always dealt with the story of Patrick Zaki, | |
| 00:53 | even if I didn’t talk about it, with you all. I am happy | |
| 00:58 | with what Italy has achieved, with Patrick Zaki’s pardon. | |
| 01:04 | I believe that it is also the result of relations, of Italy’s earnestness, let’s say, | |
| 01:12 | of that Italian attitude, of that respect that Italy has for other sovereign nations. | |
| 01:19 | And so we keep doing our best. | |
| 01:23 | After that, I want to be clear on one thing, because I have also seen some complaints. | |
| 01:29 | About how much it cost us. Has any of you seen those complaints, | |
| 01:32 | about how much it cost us to bring Patrick Zaki | |
| 01:35 | back to Italy? If someone thinks that there have been … I do not know what they meant by that, but | |
| 01:43 | No, no, but I don’t mean you. No, no, for once, I don’t mean you. | |
| 01:47 | But it was just diplomacy, actually. | |
| 01:50 | And it is a kind of diplomacy that is based on relations of mutual respect, of dialogue, | |
| 01:55 | of patience. And I think it is a great result that shows how Italy is perceived abroad. | |
| 02:04 | As for President Sayed, you probably should ask that question of the EU, | |
| 02:08 | because I remind you that the agreement that has been signed | |
| 02:11 | is an agreement signed by the European Union and Tunisia. | |
| 02:16 | Because Tunisia is a nation that is in extreme difficulty right now. | |
| 02:21 | And of course, leaving it, abandoning it, let’s say, to its fate, can produce | |
| 02:26 | consequences that are very serious. | |
| 02:29 | So, be careful, because a foreign policy where someone intends dialogue | |
| 02:34 | with only three or four people at most, | |
| 02:38 | refusing dialogue with everyone else, if, let’s say, the conditions are | |
| 02:43 | not exactly what we expect, is a foreign policy that risks making the situation worse. | |
| 02:49 | What is my view? My view has always been this: as democracy creates development, | |
| 02:54 | in the exact same manner, development creates democracy. | |
| 02:57 | And so, whenever a nation is in difficulty, instead of working on abandoning it to its fate, | |
| 03:01 | to further destabilize it and perhaps going, as we do today, | |
| 03:06 | to other countries where we thought we would improve the situation, | |
| 03:09 | and I don’t think we have improved it, we should try to guide these countries, | |
| 03:13 | to work on bringing them closer to our standards, | |
| 03:17 | which are clearly our reference standards, and to make sure | |
| 03:22 | that development can help them. | |
| 03:25 | The work that the European Commission is doing, not I, I repeat it, | |
| 03:29 | because the agreement is an agreement that has been signed by the European Commission, | |
| 03:32 | which was put within the conclusions of the European Council, therefore | |
| 03:38 | brings the European Commission and all the European leaders together. | |
| 03:43 | So, obviously, the approach that says “let’s cooperate, let’s look | |
| 03:49 | for solutions that can be structural, | |
| 03:52 | that can create development, that will automatically generate better conditions too,” | |
| 04:00 | is the approach that everyone shares at this moment. |
the liberation of a minor convicted terrorist like zaki is not a great achievement for italy… even if the press has something to celebrate. actually only the left in italy wanted him freed. regeni on the other hand was killed by MI6, he was working in fact for oxford university (uk) as a “social researcher” and they sent him into a trap in egypt, literally asking him to foment a revolution against the legitimate president Al Sisi, I still am not sure if the scope was to create an incident between italy and egypt, or if they really believed to remove the “evil dictator” and replace him with islamic integralists as they tried to do for years in syria with isis and other places as well; but it could also be maybe both. Of course the press in italy will continue on the same scope, portraying egypt of Al Sisi (the really only stable country in the region surrounded on all its borders by terrorists) as evil dictatorship. . .