Italy has saved Europe's honour: Conte

Buenos Aires  :  By rescuing hundreds of thousands of people in the Mediterranean in recent years, Italy has saved Europe's honour, Italy's populist premier Giuseppe Conte said on Thursday, urging nations to jointly shoulder the burden of migration.

"An approach involving shared responsibility is needed at political and security level before the economic level," Conte said in a lecture at the University of Buenos Aires on Thursday.

"We have urged this and have tackled a complex challenge, that of migration, after having rescued thousands of people in the Mediterranean," he said.

"We have saved Europe's honour, as European Union institutions have recognised," Conte went on.

Conte is in Buenos Aires for the G20 summit taking place on Friday and Saturday.