SGiorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, and Rishi Sunak, her British counterpart, get on famously well – and never miss an opportunity to show it. On Saturday, December 16, in Rome, their diplomatic idyll is set to mark a new stage. The Conservative prime minister is due to meet Meloni before addressing the annual celebration of Fratelli D'Italia, Meloni's political party, whose other distinguished guest is entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The two heads of government's meeting in Rome concludes a year marked by the strengthening of relations between Italy and the UK, punctuated by demonstrative bilateral contacts on the fringes of international summits and warm expressions of good understanding.

In April, in London, Meloni and Sunak signed a memorandum of understanding on bilateral cooperation, which the president of the council, who is fluent in English, described as a "new beginning" in relations between the two countries. The wide-ranging text covers migration issues, climate, police and judicial cooperation, innovation, international security and the defense sector.

It was signed after Italy had already become, in February, the first EU state to conclude an export and investment partnership with the UK since Brexit. London and Rome are also involved with Japan in the joint program to develop, by 2035, a new-generation supersonic fighter aircraft, framed by a treaty signed on Thursday in Tokyo. In another sign of rapprochement, Meloni was the only leader of a G7 country to visit Bletchley Park, in northwest London in early November for the summit on the risks associated with artificial intelligence, convened by Sunak.

Bilateral rapprochements

For the British leader, building special relations with Italy corresponds to a strategy of bilateral rapprochements made necessary by Brexit. This logic is preferred to a rapprochement with European institutions, which does not interest the British leader, an early Brexiter, despite normalization with Brussels.

At the heart of the new relationship between the UK and Italy lies, above all, the same restrictive approach to migration issues, on which their diplomatic services are preparing a future strategic partnership, provided for in the April memorandum of understanding. Meloni has promised her electorate to put an end to migrant arrivals on the central Mediterranean route, which rose sharply in 2023. Like her, the British prime minister, who came to power in October 2022, has done the same for crossings of the English Channel from Calais, which have also reached an all-time high.

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