French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of spreading misleading information about the meetings on Ukraine, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
Specifically, this concerns her statements about why she was not among the participants in the recent meetings between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders.
Macron pointed out that information must be handled responsibly, and added that there is already enough disinformation from Russia. He said that the meetings being targeted were organized with the aim of achieving a ceasefire and lasting peace in Ukraine. There was no mention of deploying troops or anything like that, he said.
Earlier, Meloni explained Italy's role as the "great absentee" in the talks by saying that her country currently has no intention of sending troops to Ukraine to ensure compliance with a possible peace agreement. "There is no point in participating in formats that pursue goals that we have explicitly said we do not share", she pointed out.
Yesterday, on the sidelines of the summit in the Albanian capital Tirana, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Macron, Zelensky and the prime ministers of Britain and Poland, Keir Starmer and Donald Tusk, spoke together by phone with US President Donald Trump.
Nearly a week ago, Merz, Macron, Tusk and Starmer visited Kiev together to meet with Zelensky.
A media report that the German government had downgraded the level of diplomatic importance of relations with Italy caused sharp indignation in Rome, on the eve of the first visit to the Apennines by the new Chancellor Friedrich Merz, reported DPA, quoted by BTA.
On Thursday, the conservative daily "Welt" reported that one of the drafts of the coalition agreement between the partners in Germany's new government stated that Italy was an important partner and part of the enlarged European axis, along with France and Poland.
However, in the final version of the document, Rome is no longer mentioned in this context. According to the newspaper, the change was probably made at the insistence of Merz's coalition partners from the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Several high-ranking Italian politicians expressed dissatisfaction with the news.
"This is an anti-European decision by the German Social Democrats", said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry denied the publication and added that Italy was welcome in the so-called Weimar+ format.
Rome has recently participated in several meetings of the group, which is an expanded version of the "Weimar Triangle" diplomatic forum involving Germany, France and Poland.
The spokesman did not comment on the development of the coalition agreement.
Deputy government spokesman Steffen Meyer stressed that Italy was a high priority for the federal government and that Berlin maintained "very close ties" with Rome within a wide range of formats.
When asked to comment on the topic, a SPD spokesman said Italy was an "important partner", adding that the issue had played no role in discussions on the coalition agreement between the chief negotiators.
Cooperation between the two countries will certainly be the focus of today's talks between Meloni and Merz in Rome, DPA notes.