Southern Europe's leaders to address key EU issues in Rome

ROME, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Leaders from seven countries in southern Europe would gather in the Italian capital late on Wednesday to address key issues for the European Union (EU) in 2018.

The summit would engage Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, and Cyprus, starting from 6:30 p.m. local time, according to a statement from Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's office.

Leaders of the seven countries were expected to discuss some "crucial deadlines" awaiting the bloc this year, Ansa news agency reported citing government sources.

The agenda would especially focus on an expected reform of Dublin Regulation (concerning where asylum-seekers are allowed to file their claim) by June, a re-organization of the EU parliament after the Brexit, the reforms needed in the Economic and Monetary Union, and migration.

Although involved to different degrees in the hot topic, all seven countries agree the migration issue can be only tackled at EU level, and special attention in the talks would be paid to the reform of the EU asylum policy.

Southern European countries -- Italy and Greece especially -- have served as major entry points for people seeking refuge or better life in Europe from Africa and the Middle East, and have repeatedly appealed for migrant and refugee inflows to be shared more evenly across the EU.

A relocation and resettlement scheme has never been fully implemented so far, despite being introduced by the European Commission since May 2015.

During the summit, the leaders are now expected to reinforce their common stance on the issue, to better counterbalance the so-called "Visegrad Group" (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Czech Republic), which strenuously opposes the idea of distributing refugees according to quotas.

This will be the fourth summit for the seven leaders, since the so-called "EU Med Group" was informally created in 2013.

After an opening summit in September 2016 in Greece, the EU Med Group gathered in Lisbon and Madrid in January and April 2017 respectively.

All together, the seven countries would represent one-fourth of the whole EU membership, contributing at least 41 percent to the bloc's budget, according to Italian media citing EU statistics. Enditem