• Profile: The metamorphosis of Giuseppe Conte, the lawyer of the Italians

In January 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron and then Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni agreed on the basis of a bilateral agreement with which to relaunch a new European axis led by Paris and Rome. That 'Treaty of the Quirinal', inspired by the signed between France and Germany in 1963, which served to lay the pillars of European construction, remained in wet paper after the Matteo Salvini League and the Five Star Movement came to power six months later and they will declare the 'war' to the Elysium tenant. Now, with a new coalition in the Italian Government, France seeks in its southern neighbor an ally with which to re-found Europe.

The Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the French President, Emmanuel Macron, presided over a summit in Naples in which the Ministers of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Defense, Economy, Transport, Environment, Culture, Education, Research and Affairs participated Europeans from both countries. The representatives of the delegations discussed the future stability pact of the EU, as well as the management of the common migration policy. In this regard, both leaders agreed on the need to fight jointly against human trafficking, terrorism and favor an orderly management of immigration by improving collaboration in the central Mediterranean.

Macron thanked the work of the president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and Prime Minister Conte at the end of a meeting that will serve, said the French president, to "relaunch" relations between France and Italy. An agreement "important not only for our countries, but also an element of balance and dynamism for the EU," he said, although in his speech he did not name Spain or any other European ally. For its part, Conte stressed the need to work together to make the EU "a little more supportive, safe, social and environmentally friendly" .

The meeting between both leaders served to turn the page after months of disagreements as a result of the immigration policy of former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. During the previous Italian Executive, the diplomatic tension between Paris and Rome reached one of its most critical moments when a close collaborator of Macron declared "League" the position of the Government of the League and the Five Star Movement facing the management of the migration crisis . Italy demanded public apologies and summoned the French ambassador to Rome. A few months later, it would be Paris who would demand explanations from its Italian neighbors after the meeting of the then Minister of Labor and vice president, Luigi Di Maio, with a delegation of the yellow vests . A year later, tensions seem overcome.

The French president landed in Naples after visiting the hospital in Paris where on Wednesday the first French victim died of coronavirus. "We have before us a crisis, an epidemic that is coming," said Macron. The spread of the disease, which has already claimed 17 deaths and 650 infected in Italy, was one of the main issues discussed during the meeting. Macron said that France will keep the borders with Italy open , thus rejecting the proposal of the leader of the extreme right Marine Le Pen, which had called for the establishment of strict border controls to prevent the outbreak recorded in northern Italy from reaching the Gallic country . "It is a virus that involves us all and the situation will only be resolved with perfect international cooperation," he said.

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  • Italy
  • Paris
  • France
  • Sergio Mattarella
  • Matteo Salvini
  • Marine Le Pen
  • Europe
  • Germany

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