King and Queen begin State visit to Italy on Tuesday, which will include Rome and Naples

Eduardo González The King and Queen of Spain will make a State visit to Italy from this Tuesday until Thursday, December 12, in which they will be accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and which will include visits to Rome and Naples. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release, the State visit “is taking place within the good relations that both countries maintain, which enjoy a long historical tradition.” “It also constitutes a propitious opportunity to express the desire to continue strengthening the deep historical, political, cultural and human ties that exist between the Republic of Italy and the Kingdom of Spain,” it added. Don Felipe and Doña Letizia will be received in Rome by President Mattarella, at his official residence at the Quirinal Palace. In addition to meetings with the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, their agenda also includes a trip to the city of Naples, where the Spanish influence is very strong. This will be the second state visit that the King and Queen will make in 2024. The first took them to the Netherlands on April 17 and 18. Italy was one of the first countries that Don Felipe and Doña Letizia officially visited after ascending to the Throne in 2014, being received in November of that year by the then president, Giorgio Napolitano. Since then, the relationship with Italy has been very intense, and this has been helped by the fact that, every year, the Italian president participates together with the King and the President of Portugal in the COTEC Europe Meetings (organised by the Foundation for Technological Innovation, COTEC), whose honorary presidency is held by the Spanish Monarch and whose objective is to reflect and exchange ideas on problems and needs common to companies and economies of the three countries. In fact, Mattarella participated on 19 September in the last edition of the COTEC Europe Meeting, held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was unable to attend due to the serious wave of fires affecting his country at that time. The COTEC Europe summit, which has been organised since 2005 in a different country each year, in rotating order, brings together the heads of state of Spain, Portugal and Italy, the three countries in which the Foundation is established. The Italian President, accompanied by his daughter, Laura Mattarella, who acts as First Lady, made a State visit to Spain on 16 and 17 November 2021, and then attended the COTEC Europe Meeting, held in Malaga. On that occasion, Mattarella conveyed to the King and Queen the wish that they could return his visit as soon as possible, something that is now going to become a reality. In June 2023, the King travelled to Palermo for the COTEC Europe Meeting and visited the city centre, taking a tour of the culture and history of the Mediterranean island, which includes the Spanish footprint in the ancient Kingdom of Sicily.

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