Energy + illegal migration top talks with Italy’s Tajani: Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani talked about upping cooperation on energy security and stemming illegal migration to Italy in a meeting with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, according to an Ittihadiya statement. Tajani also met and then held a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (watch, runtime: 24:58), where regional issues including resolving the conflict in Libya were at the top of the agenda.

Best friends on energy: “I believe Egypt should become one of Italy's big partners in the Mediterranean. Italy aspires to be a big European energy hub and on this point there can be convergence with Egypt,” Tajani said at the presser with Shoukry. Egypt is trying to maximize its exports of natural gas as the EU looks for new energy suppliers to fill the gap left by the loss of Russian fossil fuels. Italy’s Eni — which holds a 50% stake in the Damietta LNG plant and produces around 60% of the country’s gas — has signed on to help boost production at home and max out LNG exports to Europe.

And on migration: Italy is “ready to have more legal migrants, including those coming from Egypt,” Tajani said, without giving any figures. More Egyptians arrived illegally in Italy in 2022 than people of any other nationality last year at some 20.5k people — more than twelvefold the figure in 2020, Reuters reports. Most embark from Libya.

Tajani also “asked for and received assurances for strong cooperation on the Regeni and Zaki cases” from El Sisi and Shoukry, he said in tweets (here and here), adding at the presser that Cairo “is ready to remove roadblocks” to resolve both cases. Italian postgraduate student Guilio Regeni was murdered in Egypt in 2016. Egyptian human rights advocate Patrick Zaki, who was a student at Bologna University, was released from prison in 2021 but still awaits trial on charges of spreading false news.

Mass boycott of Arab FMs for Tripoli-hosted Arab League meet: Only five of 22 Arab foreign ministers showed up to an Arab League meeting hosted by Libya’s Tripoli-based government, the Associated Press reports. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was among the no-shows, having last year called for the UN to label the Tripoli-based government as “illegitimate.” Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who leads the Tripoli government, has refused to cede power since national elections meant to bridge the impasse between the country’s two rival administrations fell through at the end of 2021.