Meloni cancels her presence at EuroMed 9 in Alicante due to a flu, where she was going to meet bilaterally with Sánchez

The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, will attend in his place.

MADRID, 9 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, has canceled her presence at the Euromed 9 Euro-Mediterranean Summit to be held this Friday in Alicante due to flu. The bilateral meeting that he was going to hold with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is therefore suspended.

Meloni will not finally go to Spain when he finds himself with a fever, according to official sources have indicated to Italian media. The delegation from the transalpine country will be led by the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani.

The MED9 summit starts this Friday afternoon and brings together Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia and Croatia. The appointment was initially scheduled for the end of September but Sánchez's positive for COVID-19 forced his postponement.

Previously, this same Friday morning another summit will take place in the same city, in which Sánchez, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Portuguese prime minister, Antonio Costa, will stage in the presence of the president of the European Commission , Ursula Von der Leyen, the coming-out of the future H2MED green hydrogen corridor.

According to the initial plans, Sánchez intended to take advantage of the occasion to hold his first bilateral meeting with the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, although both already met last month at the G-20 summit in Indonesia.

The president had already anticipated his intention to meet Meloni in Alicante after speaking with her on the phone to congratulate her on her election. "Relations between Spain and Italy transcend governments and intertwine societies in multiple areas," Sánchez said then, given that Meloni leads a government made up of the Brothers of Italy and the far-right League, and Forza Italia, right.

According to government sources, Sánchez will have the opportunity to hold a brief bilateral meeting with Macron on the sidelines of the three-way meeting with Costa on H2MED in which the two will review issues of mutual interest. From the Élysée they have specified that both presidents will review bilateral relations and discuss some energy projects for 2023.