Paris, May 25 (Prensa Latina) French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna will travel to Italy today to meet her counterpart Antonio Tajani, who canceled a visit to Paris earlier this month after comments by a senior official on the migration crisis.
In a statement accompanying the trip, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs justified the trip with the strengthening of bilateral ties and with an interest in promoting the Quirinal Treaty (2021) arrangements to strengthen ties, a mechanism unveiled in February came into force 1 of this year.
However, there is an underlying dispute sparked by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who accused Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of being “unable to solve the migratory problems” in the central Mediterranean, which has led to the illegal entry of thousands of people, including minors French territory leads .
The interior minister went even further, saying Meloni was like Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right in France. These remarks sparked a reaction in Rome, which canceled Tajani’s visit and demanded an apology.
This week Colonna had denied the existence of a Paris-Rome crisis and raised a trip to the neighboring country at the invitation of his counterpart.
“We want to improve cooperation with Italy to stop the illegal influx of people as part of a European policy and we have common interests, for example on the issue of prevention,” he told France 2 on Tuesday.
According to the State Department, the topic of emigration in the Mediterranean will be on the meeting’s agenda, although it put it at the bottom of a list that initially reflected Ukraine’s support in the conflict with Russia and the preparation of the organization North Atlantic Treaty, scheduled for September 11. and July 12 in Vilnius.
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