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Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni (L) greets French President Emmanuel Macron before a southern European Union nations meeting in Rome, Italy Jan. 10, 2018. Leaders from seven southern European countries in Rome made a joint appeal on Wednesday for further economic and financial integration in the European Union (EU), and "for more solidarity" on migration policies. (Xinhua/Alberto Lingria)

by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Leaders from seven southern European countries in Rome made a joint appeal on Wednesday for further economic and financial integration in the European Union (EU), and "for more solidarity" on migration policies.

The appeal came at the end of the fourth summit of the so-called "EU Med Group" comprising Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, and Cyprus.

The seven leaders met late in the Italian capital, and acknowledged the EU was back on a path of growth after a decade of financial crisis.

Yet, in a joint declaration, they urged "further steps to complete the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)... (in order) to achieve more sustainable and balanced growth, competitiveness, quality employment and convergence."

They also called for the completion and strengthening of the banking union, and for establishing "a common backstop to the Single Resolution Fund and a European Deposit Insurance Scheme, in line with the need to combine the objectives of risk sharing and risk reduction."

Both the joint declaration, and the leaders' remarks after the summit, showed a will to present the "Southern Europeans" as a united front of countries bound together by common views on several major topics.

"We need a more cohesive EU, in which the differences between north and south, east and west, may decrease... and the time is now," Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni told a press conference.

As expected, migration was also high on the agenda, since southern EU countries have been on the frontline of the crisis, bearing the largest burden in terms of arrivals or transits.

In latest years, they have repeatedly called for migrant and refugee inflows to be redistributed more evenly across the EU. Yet, a EU relocation scheme involving quotas -- introduced by the European Commission in May 2015 -- has never been fully implemented for the hostility of other partners.

"The management of migration flows will be a fundamental challenge for the EU in the years to come, and the Southern EU countries are particularly concerned and affected, as they are at the forefront of the EU external borders," the seven stated in the declaration.

"Our fundamental role and burden of protecting those borders must be acknowledged and shared by the EU... We are strongly committed to a common European migration policy."

At the press conference, French President Emmanuel Macron specifically mentioned the need to "reinforce the mechanism of solidarity, and give a solution to the inconsistencies of the Dublin Regulation (concerning where asylum-seekers are allowed to file their claim within the EU)."

The 2017 marked a turning point in the migration crisis, and especially for Italy, which has been a major entry point for migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean in latest years.

Thanks to an agreement struck between Rome and the Libyan authorities -- much controversial in the eyes of humanitarian agencies and groups -- a sharp reduction of arrivals in the second half of the year was possible.

However, the seven leaders stressed such progresses, and this only way to deal with the issue, would not suffice.

"We have reached encouraging results in the external dimension (of the crisis), and in the fight against trafficking," Italy's Gentiloni told reporters.

"Yet, these results need to be reinforced through a common understanding not only on the external management of the crisis, but also on the internal rules of the Union," he added.

As such, in the joint statement, the EU Med Group asked for "a new and fair Common European Asylum System."