“I have a lot of respect for Italy. I am going to pay an official visit in two weeks to meet Madame Meloni (…) and then I will visit the European countries one by one soon, finally in the time that I will have before me,” said the head of the French Government.
According to Matignon, the exact dates of this trip have not yet been set.
“Reasons to work together”
Michel Barnier risks being censured in France by the left and the extreme right for his draft budget, whose final approval is expected before the end of the year.
He did so during the VI France-Germany-Italy Trilateral Economic Forum, which brings together the French employers’ association Medef and its German and Italian counterparts, BDI and Confindustria, until Friday.
“We have reasons to work more closely (with Italy) and that is why what French businessmen have been doing for six or seven years” with their counterparts “is extremely important,” the prime minister stressed.
“France has often neglected Italy”
Referring to the Franco-German “tandem”, currently in difficulties, he estimated that “Franco-German cooperation is increasingly necessary and increasingly less sufficient.”
Therefore, “we must open up and not be exclusive. And Italy is a very large country that France has often neglected,” he continued.
Michel Barnier traveled, on his first trip outside France, to Brussels to attend a meeting of the EPP, his political family in the European Parliament.
He then traveled to the Franco-Italian border to salute the “effective cooperation” between both countries on migration matters. On this occasion he met with two ministers from Giorgia Meloni’s government, which combines right and extreme right, Antonio Tajani (Foreign Affairs), whom he knows well, and Matteo Piantedosi (Interior).
Source: BFM TV
