PARIS — Italy’s Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani on Thursday canceled at the last minute an official visit to Paris following comments made by France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Rome’s migration policy.
“Offenses to the government and Italy by the minister Darmanin are unacceptable. This is not the spirit in which common European challenges should be addressed,” Tajani wrote in a tweet, saying that he would not attend a dinner meeting with his French homologue Catherine Colonna in Paris planned for Thursday evening.
Earlier on Thursday, Darmanin told RMC radio that the “far-right” Italian government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was “incapable of resolving migration problems.”
On Thursday afternoon, before Tajani canceled his trip, France’s foreign affairs ministry tried to avert a new diplomatic crisis with a statement, stressing that Paris wants to work with Rome “in a spirit of solidarity” on managing migration flows in the Mediterranean.
A spokesperson for France’s interior minister declined to comment.
Colonna tweeted that she had spoken with Tajani and told him that the “relationship between Italy and France is based on mutual respect between the two countries and between their leaders.” Colonna added that she is looking forward to welcoming Tajani “soon” in Paris.
The new diplomatic spat comes after months of ups and downs between the French and the Italian governments.
Traditional Franco-Italian tensions on migration issues seemed to have calmed down earlier this year, when Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi visited Darmanin in Paris in February and the two governments announced they would carry joint missions to North African countries.
Diplomats on both sides of the Alps are working on a Meloni visit to Paris after the May G7 summit but ahead of a European Council meeting scheduled at the end of June, according to someone with direct knowledge of the trip who was not authorized to speak publicly.
