After months of open disagreements, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni is set to receive French president Emmanuel Macron in Rome on Tuesday, June 3, for a high-level meeting. According to sources from Palazzo Chigi, “the main themes of the bilateral, European and international agenda will be at the center of the meeting.”
The encounter follows a series of tense exchanges and strained interactions between the two leaders, due to very different positions regarding Ukraine, migration, and core European values.
Earlier in May, tensions rose over Italy’s absence from a meeting in Tirana that involved Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and, remotely, U.S. president Donald Trump. Meloni defended Italy’s stance, citing a refusal to send troops to Kiev. Macron, however, dismissed her justification, stating, “We were talking about a ceasefire.”
