Migrants, contacts with France to “unfreeze” relations. Meloni pushes on economic dossiers – Corriere.it

The icing on the cake would be one visit to the Elysium before the European Council. Yesterday’s meeting with Charles Michel, president of the EU Council, went very well. Visits to Berlin and Stockholmnext Friday, are stages of a diplomatic progression which strengthens the role of the premier. At this point, a face to face with Macron, for Giorgia Meloni, would mean adding another significant element to protect the objectives she is pursuing in Europe.

betweenElisha And Palazzo Chigi in these hours an agreement is being sought. First of all on the migrant dossier. The crisis between Rome and Paris took place right on the course of one ship full of migrants. The recomposition, and the public communication that seals it, will take place, when it will, in the first place on this issue. It is one of the requests that Meloni made to his diplomats, it is something that is also fine with the French, who on the immigration dossier, apart from the NGOs, think in a way not far from the Italian government.

Tomorrow the Quirinale Treaty will enter into force, that strategic agreement between the two states which was launched by Paolo Gentiloni and Emmanuel Macronwas frozen during the years of the Conte government, was finally signed by the Draghi government, with the decisive accompaniment of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. And yet, despite the importance of the treaty, tomorrow’s date will pass almost on the sly given the disagreements that have marked relations between the two countries in recent months.

A meeting at the Elysée would serve to unfreeze, so to speak, even publicly, a special relationship between the military, diplomatic, security, industrial, commercial and political apparatuses in general, which have never known a lsuch a high level of collaboration as well as in the last year. Also thanks to the Treaty. In the Mediterranean, Italian and French ships often move as if they belonged to the same fleet. In the defense sector just as in the aerospace sector the integration of industrial and political interests, as demonstrated by the visit of a few days by the French minister to Guido Crosetto, has never been so good. But they are just two examples.

Obviously, they point out at Palazzo Chigi, a stone above disagreements it serves on migrants but also in 360 degrees: in view of the next European Council, Paris can give us more than a hand both on economic dossiers, on the defense of the European industrial fabric in response to recent American legislation, and on many other issues.

Yesterday Giorgia Meloni, at the end of her meeting with Charles Michel, insisted for the second time in a few days on the need for the European Commission to grant the right «flexibility on cohesion funds to protect our industry and therefore also that precious asset which is the internal market of the Union and a correctlevel playing field
».

At stake in the next 12 months, if green light arrives from Brussels, there are about 15 billion euros. In the next 8 years it will reach 80 billion. Negotiations are underway with the Commission but to achieve an objective of this magnitude, which can also serve for a more widespread implementation of the Pnrr, the consents of the main EU partners are needed. Paris in the lead.

Our diplomats summarize: «The Treaty of the Quirinale with Paris could also be added in the near future a strategic agreement with Berlin, we are already discussing this. Italian interests are protected both at the Elysée and at the German Chancellery».