The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has canceled her participation in the Euro-Mediterranean summit this Friday in Alicante at the last minute because she is unwell, sources close to the president have confirmed to La Vanguardia. In his place, the Italian delegation will be headed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani.
"Unfortunately, he will not be able to be present due to a feverish state", these sources have assured about the Eu Med-9 summit, which this year is being held in Spain and which also brings together France, Portugal, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia and Croatia to discuss matters of interest to the countries of southern Europe and the Mediterranean, starting with the energy crisis.
Meloni's initial presence in Alicante was surrounded by interest in the possibility of a bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, with whom he is having a difficult dispute over the immigration issue. At first it was expected that the Spanish city could be the scene of a first official meeting between the two to smooth things out, but the Elysee had already stressed that no formal bilateral meeting was planned outside the summit.
Meloni and Macron have started on the wrong foot after the Italian refusal to welcome the migrants rescued by the Ocean Viking ship of the French NGO SOS Mediterranée, the humanitarian ship ended up disembarking in Toulon. Then, Paris came to call Rome's decision "unilateral, unacceptable, ineffective and unfair", while the Italian premier considered the French reaction "aggressive and unjustified".
Since then, a call from the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, to Macron seemed to have smoothed out the rough edges, but it has not succeeded. In Meloni's environment they are angry about the fact that the Elysee has leaked that Rome has not yet found a date for a visit by Meloni to Paris, when, according to sources from the Italian Executive have told Corriere della Sera, they have not received "any Official invitation".
This is another misunderstanding at a formal level, after the first time Meloni assumed that France was open to hosting Ocean Viking due to some articles in the press, but which show that both governments are not willing to sit down and talk about the immigration issue that divides them. Nor did they take advantage of the European meeting in Alicante to see themselves alone.
