NS The treaty was signed at the presidential palace in Quirinale, by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and French President Emmanuel Macron, in the presence of the Italian Head of State, Sergio Mattarella.
Draghi, Macron and Mattarella exchanged a long hug as Italian and French planes hovered over Rome, leaving behind smoke in the colors of the two countries, AFP described.
The treaty provides for strengthening cooperation in the most diverse areas: diplomacy and defense, digital and environmental transformations, culture and education, economic and industrial cooperation, and the space sector.
According to AFP, the exact content of the treaty has not been made public.
As founding members of the Federation [Europeia] After the signing, Macron said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Draghi declared that the agreement represented a “historic moment,” noting that the institutions of the two countries were based on “the same republican values, on respect for human and civil rights, and on Europeanism.”
Sergio Mattarella, in turn, said that “the strong relationship between Italy and France helps build a stronger Europe, which is even more necessary today given the challenges that only a more integrated Europe can face.”
The Italian European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, welcomed on Twitter the Franco-Italian agreement that “strengthens the entire European Union in a historic transition.”
An Italian government source said the treaty would have “important symbolic value” in a European context marked by instability after the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and Germany’s political transition, with the end of the Merkel era. The positions of the Franco-German axis combined.
According to Agence France-Presse, Macron said during his visit to Rome, which began Thursday, that France is not looking for “alternative paths” to the Franco-German relationship after Merkel’s departure, stressing, in fact, that the German chancellor is still in office. .
This “reinforced bilateral cooperation treaty” is the second of its kind concluded by France after the Elisha Treaty signed with Germany in 1963, which was updated by the Aachen Agreement, in 2019, which Macron and Merkel signed.
The treaty signed today was announced today in 2017, but was frozen after the formation, in 2018, of a populist government in Italy led by the 5-Star Movement (anti-regime), in alliance with Matteo Salvini (the far-right) League.
In early 2019, relations between the two countries were affected when then-Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio met with a leader of France’s “yellow vests” (stabbing movement), and Matteo Salvini, who was the interior minister, called for Macron’s resignation.
In protest, Paris temporarily recalled its ambassador to Rome, in what was the most serious diplomatic crisis between the two neighbors since 1945, according to AFP.
Italy and France are the second and third largest economies in the Eurozone after Germany.
Together, they account for nearly a third of EU citizens and their GDP.
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