'Italy won't compromise on migrants' - Letta

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta today said that Italy would not accept "cut-price compromises" at this week's summit of European Union leaders, at which he will raise the issue of the Mediterranean migrant crisis.

"Europe, because of its history and its deepest, noblest roots, cannot look on at such tragedies," Letta told the Lower House referring to this month's two migrant-boat disasters near to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa in which over 400 people died.

"If it does, it dies," Letta told Italian legislators, adding that his government will demand four commitments from the EU at the summit on Thursday.

The four targets, he said were: the acceptance that the situation in Lampedusa is a European problem; immediate measures to implement the Eurosur surveillance programme and beef up the activities of EU border agency Frontex in the southern Mediterranean; a plan of action to manage the migrant crisis; and dialogue with countries on the southern side of the Mediterranean. Lampedusa is the main port of entry into Europe for migrants smuggled by boat from Libya or Tunisia.

Each year, thousands of people make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in often rickety and overcrowded vessels.

Last week, a state of emergency was declared in Sicily and the island of Lampedusa was declared unsafe because of the influx of migrants over the past few weeks. However, Italy also announced increased patrols in the Mediterranean following the deaths of hundreds of migrants sailing in overcrowded boats.

Two weeks ago, at least 33 people died when their boat capsized between Malta and Lampedusa, however the death toll could rise to 200. Eight days earlier, more than 350 migrants died in another shipwreck off Lampedusa, one of the deadliest such incidents in recent years.

Since the beginning of the year, Malta has almost 2,000 migrants reached Malta, while 35,085 migrants reached Italy's coasts with 73% meeting the legal criteria for asylum.

Letta said the upcoming summit would be "an opportunity to talk about a different Europe" after many debates in the Italian parliament "in which we have talked about Europe being consumed by its contradictions and having lost its soul".