Italy’s PM irked by "inappropriate" French-German meeting with Zelenskyy

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s late-night dinner at the Élysée Palace with the leaders of France and Germany has sparked a fresh tiff between Rome and Paris, with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni calling the hastily organised soirée “inappropriate”.

Meloni said the event in Paris hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron — to which she was not invited — undermined European solidarity and appeared to be driven by the French leader’s desire to distract from his domestic political woes including unrest over his proposed pension reforms, Financial Times reports.

“I believe our strength on this issue is our unity,” she said in Brussels where she attended an EU summit with Zelenskyy on February 9. “I understand the pressures of internal politics . . . but there are times when catering to one’s own domestic opinion risks detriment to the cause. I think this was one of those cases.”

Zelenskyy arrived in Paris late on Wednesday night after a day in London where he was given the red carpet treatment including visits with the King and a speech in parliament. The stopover in Paris was shorter and was organised at the very last minute, with invitations sent out earlier that day, according to officials.

It was after 10pm in Paris when Macron, Zelenskyy and German chancellor Olaf Scholz gave short declarations to the press but did not take questions. The three then had dinner at a table with only translators present and no aides. Macron presented Zelenskyy(opens a new window) with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, the highest award that a French president can give out.

Macron pushed back against Meloni’s claims on Thursday, noting that France and Germany had worked together to try to bring peace to Ukraine since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and started orchestrating a proxy war in the Donbas.

Through the so-called Normandy format, France and Germany had held largely fruitless diplomatic talks with both Ukraine and Russia to try to find a peaceful solution to the hostilities.

“I wanted to welcome Zelenskyy with Chancellor Olaf Scholz,” Macron said when asked about Meloni’s critique of not being at the meeting. “Germany and France have had a particular role for the past eight years on this question.”

He added that it was also “up to Zelenskyy to choose formats” of his meetings.

In Italy, Meloni’s absence appeared in sharp contrast to her predecessor Mario Draghi’s joint trip to Kyiv with Macron and Scholz in June last year.

However, analysts said Meloni’s evident pique at being excluded from the meeting would do little to improve the already-strained relations between Paris and Rome, which have yet to recover from a diplomatic spat over migration within weeks of her taking power.

“She is not doing herself any favours by overblowing it,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of Rome-based Institute of International Affairs. “Franco-Italian relations are not exactly stellar . . . When you have a government about which other governments have big questions marks, obviously the likelihood of being excluded increases.”

However, Tocci said that Italy’s absence from the dinner was not simply a personal matter between two national leaders.

“This is not just about Meloni — it’s about Italy. It is Italy that should be asking itself the question, ‘what is it that we can do to have a greater weight in European integration?’ Whining isn’t the answer.”