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French President Emmanuel Macron meets Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France on May 21, 2017. (Reuters)

French President Emmanuel Macron urged on Sunday the European Union to exert more efforts to tackle the migrant crisis, noting that it has disregarded Italys warning about the asylum seekers.

Macron reiterated ahead of a working dinner at the Elysee Palace with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni that he wishes to work quickly within the EU to strengthen rules to protect workers against social dumping and improve regulations on public procurement.

In a nod to Italy, which has received more than 45,000 people arriving by boat from North Africa so far this year alone, Macron said the EU also had to better share the burden of the high migration flows across the Mediterranean in recent years.

The EU has seen some 1.6 million refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa and beyond reach its shores in 2014-2016. Most first arrived in flimsy boats in Greece but now head mainly to Italy. Many have died at sea.

We did not quite hear the warnings that Italy sent us, Macron said. I want us to address a real reform of the right of asylum and of our current regulations to better protect those countries most subject to this migratory pressure.

Gentiloni urged the EU to draw up a common migration policy, and also called for the euro zone monetary union to move toward a fiscal and banking union.

It wont be a quick process but the important thing is to be able to start and to go in the right direction, he said.

Macrons meeting with Gentiloni comes after one with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday to draw up a roadmap for deeper EU integration.

He also met with European Council President Donald Tusk on Wednesday in Paris.

The two-day G-7 summit is meanwhile scheduled for next weekend in Taormina, Italy. US President Donald Trump is expected to attend as part of his first foreign trip.

Asharq Al-Awsat is the worlds premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities. Launched in London in 1978, Asharq Al-Awsat has established itself as the decisive publication on pan-Arab and international affairs, offering its readers in-depth analysis and exclusive editorials, as well as the most comprehensive coverage of the entire Arab world.

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Macron Urges More EU Integration on Migrant Crisis - Asharq Al-awsat English