Italian Premier Matteo Renzi says the European Union must rapidly devise a long-range, comprehensive policy to stop the flood of migrants setting out from Libya, including establishing refugee camps in Niger, Sudan and elsewhere in Africa with U.N. assistance.

Italy has been rescuing hundreds of migrants daily from distressed boats in the Mediterranean. Some 800 people are believed dead in a shipwreck last weekend alone.

Renzi told Parliament Wednesday on the eve of an EU emergency summit on migrants that Italy's "noble, generous reaction alone isn't enough."

"We are asking Europe to be Europe, not just when it's time to devise a budget."

He said broad, long-term EU strategy, with wider sea patrols and a robust presence in southern Libya, would help combat "21st-century slave drivers" of migrants.