Italy‘s hard-Right prime minister has claimed that Europe’s future is at stake unless the EU can stop the surge of uncontrolled migration across the Mediterranean. 

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the populist Brothers of Italy party, made the declaration alongside the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on the Italian island of Lampedusa, where thousands of irregular migrants have landed on their journeys to Europe. 

‘The future that Europe wants for itself is at stake here,’ Meloni, 46, declared at a press conference on the island. 

‘The future of Europe depends on its ability to tackle epoch-making challenges of our time and the challenge of illegal immigration is for sure one of them.’

She said that Italy could not shoulder the full weight of responsibility for fighting irregular migration: ‘We all stake our future on this issue. At the very least we need an EU naval mission against smugglers.’ 

‘If we don’t work seriously all together to fight the illegal departures, the numbers of this will not only overwhelm the border countries, but all of the others,’ she warned. 

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen stood side-by-side with Italy’s first female prime minister, and revealed her ten-point immigration support plan to support the island of around 7,000 residents, telling them: ‘You can count on the European Union.’

The EU has pledged to move the 8,500 or so migrants that currently live on the island to other parts of the bloc. 

It will also step up border surveillance by beefing up Frontex, the EU’s border agency, with more equipment. 

Ms von der Leyen also vowed to increase migrants’ access to legal channels, telling the press conference: ‘The better we are with legal migration the stricter we can be with irregular migration.’ She added: ‘Irregular migration is a European challenge and it needs a European answer. We will decide who comes to the EU and under what circumstance and not the smugglers and traffickers.’ 

The major EU pledge comes just three months after both Ms von der Leyen and Ms Meloni travelled to Tunisia to seek its cooperation in the fight against irregular migration across the Mediterranean. 

Ms Meloni is looking to get the EU to accelerate a migration deal with Tunisia worth €785million (£676million) that would help the country return migrants to their countries of origin and beef up its coastguard with new and better equipment. 

The EU’s latest pledge also comes days after France stepped up its border security and Germany had suspended a voluntary programme for the reallocation of migrants, complaining that Italy was not respecting the EU’s rules on accepting returned migrants. 

The German government later reinstated the programme after von der Leyen and European Council president Charles Michel intervened. 

European sentiment towards migrants has soured as data from Frontex revealed that the EU has faced a 96 per cent increase in irregular crossings via the central Mediterranean route to Italy this year. 

Nearly 128,000 migrants have arrived in the EU via Italian soil this year so far, twice as many as last year. 

Italy currently bears the brunt of the migration crisis. Half of all irregular border crossings into the EU picked up by Frontex were in Italy.

This month, EU officials said they expected more than a million asylum seekers would register claims this year alone. 

In 2015, 1.2million asylum claims were lodged in the EU, which plunged the continent into crisis as more and more EU citizens were driven to hardline anti-immigration parties. 

The 2015 migrant crisis also left hundreds of migrants dead as EU states were unable to cope with the massive influx of people, with many bodies being found frozen in refrigerated vans, in the wrecks of capsized boats, and washed up on beaches.  

That September, a shocking image of the body of Aylan Kurdi, a two-year-old Syrian refugee, washed up on a Turkish beach after a failed attempt to get to Greece brought a harsh spotlight on EU countries for not doing enough to prevent migrant deaths. 

Despite this scrutiny, two weeks after the photo of Aylan was taken, Hungary put up a hard border with its neighbours Serbia and Croatia, with the aim of increasing border security and preventing irregular migrants from getting in. 

The five US prisoners released by Iran today as part of a controversial prisoner swap have arrived in Doha to begin their journey back to America. 

The prisoners were flown first from Tehran to Doha on a Qatar Airways jet today. They were greeted on the tarmac at Doha Airport by the US Ambassador to Qatar, Timmy Davis. 

Only three of the five released US prisoners have been named publicly. They are businessmen Siamak Namazi , 51, and Emad Shargi, 59, and Morad Tahbaz, 67, an environmentalist who also holds British citizenship. 

The other two prisoners – a man and a woman – have requested anonymity, according to a statement released by President Biden this morning.

The female detainee was comforted by Davis today on the tarmac in Doha. All were imprisoned in Iran on unsubstantiated spying charges. 

In exchange for their release, the Biden administration not only released five Iranians jailed in the US, but officials also unfroze $6billion in seized cash. 

He has been widely panned for the deal, which many say sets a dangerous precedent for America negotiating with terrorists. 

Among the Iranian prisoners is Reza Sarhangpour-Kafrani, a dual US-Iranian citizen who was jailed in February for supplying the Central Bank of Tehran with computer equipment and technology through a front company in the UAE, and, who was caught obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles and electronic warfare. 

The deal has been widely criticized by Republicans who say Biden is paying ransom to terrorists by releasing the men and the funds, which were frozen in South Korea in 2018 by President Donald Trump.  

The Biden administration insists there are ‘guardrails’ on what Iran can spend the money on, but critics are now demanding to know how he or his administration will police how it is used. 

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi however said this week that Iran would decide how the money would be spent. 

Trump was among the first to criticize the agreement when details of it became public on 9/11, an ill-timed announcement that was widely panned. 

A female prisoner is also being released along with a fourth, unnamed male.

Namazi has been in prison since 2015, when he was arrested during a business trip and convicted of cooperating with a hostile government – the US. 

 Shargi was arrested with his wife in 2018 on unsubstantiated espionage charges. She was later allowed to return to the US. 

Tahbaz was also convicted of spying charges. He was left out of a previous prisoner swap brokered by former British Prime Minister Liz Truss. 

But they remain deeply divided on other issues ranging from Iran‘s nuclear program and its influence around the region to U.S. sanctions and America’s military presence in the Gulf.

Qatar, a tiny but hugely wealthy Gulf Arab energy producer, has sought to raise its global profile, hosting the soccer World Cup last year and carving out a role in international diplomacy.

The Sunni Muslim nation hosts a big U.S. military base but has also forged close ties with Shi’ite Muslim Iran.

Doha hosted at least eight rounds of talks with Iranian and U.S. negotiators sitting in separate hotels, speaking via shuttle diplomacy, a source previously told Reuters.

Under the agreement, Doha agreed to monitor how Iran spends the unfrozen funds to ensure the cash is spent on humanitarian goods, such as food and medicine, and not any items under U.S. sanctions.

The transfer of Iran’s funds has drawn criticism from U.S. Republicans who say President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is in effect paying a ransom for U.S. citizens.

The White House has defended the deal.

Ties between Washington and Tehran have been boiling since Donald Trump, a Republican, pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal between Iran and global powers when he was president in 2018. 

Reaching another nuclear deal has gained little traction since, as Biden prepares for the 2024 U.S. election.

As a first step in the deal, Washington waived sanctions to allow the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar. 

The funds were blocked in South Korea, normally one of Iran’s largest oil customers, when Washington imposed sweeping financial sanctions on Tehran and the cash could not be transferred.