Merz to meet Meloni in Rome on first visit as Germany's chancellor

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is set to receive new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Rome on Saturday on his first visit to Italy since taking office.

Merz is travelling to the Italian capital for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV on Sunday and will use the opportunity for a bilateral meeting with Meloni on the eve of the event in the Vatican.

Merz and Meloni are to meet at Palazzo Chigi, the Italian prime minister's official residence.

The two leaders already met on Friday at a summit of European heads of state and government in the Albanian capital Tirana.

Since his election as chancellor, Merz has visited Paris and Warsaw for bilateral meetings. In Brussels, he also paid inaugural visits to NATO and EU leaders. Together with his colleagues from France, the United Kingdom and Poland, he also visited the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

One day before the meeting with Meloni, a report in the German conservative daily Die Welt caused a stir in Rome, stating that Italy, unlike France and Poland, was deliberately not explicitly mentioned as a strategically important partner country in the German government's coalition agreement.

This was reportedly at the insistence of Merz's coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Leading Italian politicians, such as Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, expressed outrage at the report. German government and party spokespeople denied the report, stating that Berlin was working closely with Rome even without an explicit mention in the document.