Eduardo González
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez held a meeting this Thursday in Brussels with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, three weeks after being unable to meet with his Italian counterpart during his visit to Rome due to “scheduling” conflicts.
“Today I met with Giorgia Meloni in Brussels,” Sánchez posted on social media. “Spain and Italy are working together for a strong, ambitious Europe with its own weight on the global stage, in the face of the great challenges of our time,” he added.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the European Council and during Sánchez’s participation in an informal meeting of the Friends of Cohesion group of countries, organized by the President of Romania, Nicușor Dan, and Giorgia Meloni herself.
Pedro Sánchez visited Rome on May 26 and 27, which included his participation in a high-level event on food security, coinciding with Nutrition Week, and an audience with Pope Leo XIV, just days before his apostolic visit to Spain.
According to sources at Moncloa Palace who spoke to The Diplomat, both sides had tried to arrange a meeting between Sánchez and Meloni “until the last minute,” but it was ultimately not possible due to “scheduling conflicts.” They agreed to try again the next time their two leaders were in the same place. The same sources noted that Sánchez and Meloni have met on many occasions, especially at European Council meetings, and that, therefore, their relationship is very fluid even outside of bilateral meetings.
Until this Thursday, the only bilateral meeting between Sánchez and Meloni had taken place in Rome in April 2023, during a European tour in preparation for Spain’s Presidency of the Council of the EU, which it assumed on July 1 of that year. In that meeting, the two leaders attempted to overcome their significant differences on migration and agreed on the need for a European policy that “focuses less on the internal dimension” and “more on the external dimension,” emphasizing cooperation and collaboration with countries of origin and transit in North Africa.
Migration is one of the issues that has generated the most disagreement between the current governments of Spain and Italy. Giorgia Meloni leads the ultraconservative Brothers of Italy party, which supports implementing a naval blockade in the Mediterranean and building walls on national borders to curb immigration.
Furthermore, Meloni’s government is one of the most reluctant in the EU to accept the Spanish proposal to suspend the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel. In mid-March, during a speech in the Italian Senate, the Prime Minister asserted that Italy is “in the same position as the main European countries, practically all of them, except Spain,” regarding the United States’ war in Iran.