Macron and Meloni meet in Rome after tensions on Ukraine, trade

By Michel Rose and Angelo Amante

PARIS/ROME (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowed to work jointly for a stronger Europe as they met on Tuesday following bilateral tensions over Ukraine, trade and relations with the United States.

Their three-hour summit in Rome aimed to ease relations after hostility flared publicly in recent weeks, with officials close to Macron and Meloni privately or openly criticising their respective initiatives.

"The meeting highlighted strong convergences on the European agenda for competitiveness and prosperity, to be implemented ambitiously and swiftly," the leaders said in a joint statement, adding they agreed "on the necessary conditions for European companies to compete on an equal footing".

"This also applies to sectors in transition, such as the automotive and steel industries, which require strong European commitment, as well as to more advanced sectors like artificial intelligence, decarbonised renewable energy sources such as nuclear, and space," they said.

Meloni, a nationalist leading a country with a large trade surplus with the U.S., has sought to keep Europe aligned with the U.S., using the slogan "Make the West great again" in a meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington in April, and urging caution on retaliatory responses to tariffs.

Macron, a fervent pro-European and a centrist, has pushed for the EU to take a more independent approach.

On the Russian war in Ukraine, Meloni has been sceptical about Macron's "coalition of the willing" and a Franco-British plan put forward earlier this year to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement. Sending troops would be deeply unpopular in Italy.

In the statement, the two leaders said their "unwavering and unhesitating" support for Ukraine was needed more than ever to arrive to a fair and lasting end to the war, and called for "an ambitious change in scale" for European defence capacities.

Meloni was criticised in Italy for not travelling to Kyiv with Macron and the German, British and Polish leaders on May 10 and then for missing a call with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at a summit in Albania a few days later.

French and Italian officials said Macron had taken the initiative to hold Tuesday's meeting and sought to play down talk of a rift, saying the meeting and a working dinner would be an opportunity for Macron to show "respect" and "friendship".

Both Italy and France are worried Russia might boost its presence in eastern Libya, to keep a foothold in the Mediterranean after Moscow's ally, President Bashar al-Assad, was ousted in Syria in December.

"The meeting also provided an opportunity to address other significant security issues for Europe, particularly in the Middle East and Libya," the Italo-French statement said, without elaborating.

Meloni and Macron agreed that a new bilateral summit would take place in France in early 2026.

(Writing by Michel Rose and Angelo AmanteEditing by Frances Kerry, Alvise Armellini and Sandra Maler)