Gentiloni calls for two-speed Europe

(ANSA) - Rome, January 29 - Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the idea of a 'two-speed Europe' - in which different parts of the EU integrate on different timelines based on individual country differences - is not the "best" but added that "it's right to discuss levels of varying integration", in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa published on Friday.
    "There are those, like Italy, who want a growing banking, fiscal, and political union, and others, like the United Kingdom, who only want a more efficient common market," Gentiloni said.
    "Two visions that must and can live together".
    Gentiloni said talks on the issue will start in Rome, "in a meeting between foreign ministers of the six founding countries, sixty years from the founding treaties".
    Regarding Italian Premier Matteo Renzi's meeting Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Gentiloni said the two countries, which he called "protagonists of the European scene", can work on a "shared vision for the future of the Union" despite differences on economic rules.
    He said he did not agree with the Danish decision to seize assets from migrants, calling it akin to "forcing the homeless to pay a property tax".
    As for the Swedish decision to repatriate 80,000 migrants with special flights, he said, "repatriation must be part of a common European action and not of announcements for effect".
    Commenting on the situation in Libya, Gentiloni said if that country isn't stablized, "we'll have a gigantic Somalia on the other side of the Strait of Sicily".
    "Naturally then if a country feels threatened it has the right to defend itself and can decide to combat Daesh (ISIS) in the ways that the international community shares".