Europe must work with North Africa to make the Mediterranean - already a trade and growth hotspot - "a sea of peace and dialogue, not of despair", Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Wednesday.
"The Mediterranean is the hotbed of our economic growth, a trade hotbed. It must no longer be a sea of despair, a cemetery for migrants", Tajani said.
The minister was speaking on the sidelines of the conservative European People's Party convention in Naples, southern Italy.
"We must work together...to transform the Mediterranean into a sea of peace and dialogue. We are strongly committed throughout North Africa to forging accords to combat human, arms and drugs trafficking," he said.
