Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa (L to R) attend a joint press conference at the southern European Union nations meeting in Rome, Italy, Jan. 10, 2018. A summit of seven southern European countries took place in the Italian capital on Wednesday, tackling key issues for the EU in 2018 such as growth, economic and financial reforms, and migration policies. (Xinhua/Alberto Lingria)

ROME, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- A summit of seven southern European countries took place in the Italian capital on Wednesday, tackling key issues for the EU in 2018 such as growth, economic and financial reforms, and migration policies.

The summit of the seven -- altogether known as the "EU Med Group" - involved the heads of states and governments of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, and Cyprus.

Much of their talks focused on the economic challenges awaiting the EU in the near future, and on the best ways to strengthen the bloc's response capacity.

The seven acknowledged the EU was back on a path of growth at the beginning of 2018, after a decade of financial crisis. "Further steps to complete the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) are necessary to achieve more sustainable and balanced growth, competitiveness, quality employment and convergence," they said in a joint declaration.

The group called for the completion and strengthening of the banking union as well, and for establishing "a common backstop to the Single Resolution Fund and a European Deposit Insurance Scheme, in line with the need to combine the objectives of risk sharing and risk reduction."

Migration was also high on the agenda of the seven, since southern EU countries have been on the frontline of Europe's migrant crisis, bearing the largest burden in terms of arrivals and transits.

In latest years, they have repeatedly called for the migrant and refugee inflows to be redistributed more evenly across the EU. Yet, a EU relocation and resettlement scheme involving quotas -- introduced by the European Commission in May 2015 -- has never been fully implemented for the hostility of other partners.

"The management of migration flows will be a fundamental challenge for the EU in the years to come, and the Southern EU countries are particularly concerned and affected," the Group stressed in the declaration."Our fundamental role and burden of protecting those borders must be acknowledged and shared by the EU."

The summit was the fourth for the EU Med Group, since it was informally created in 2013. It held an opening summit in September 2016 in Greece, and then met in Lisbon and Madrid in January and April 2017 respectively.