Meloni hears Leone: 'We support the efforts for peace'

Appreciation and support for the Holy See's efforts for peace. And the willingness to continue the work begun with Francis on the ethical development of Artificial Intelligence.

These are the two main messages from Giorgia Meloni to Leo XIV in the first phone call with the new Pope, just before the mass for his inauguration on Sunday, which will bring several heads of state and government to Rome. Including the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney and the President of Lebanon Joseph Aoun, with whom the Prime Minister will have meetings on Saturday at Palazzo Chigi, as happened with other leaders on the occasion of Bergoglio's funeral. To the new pontiff (who in these hours also spoke with the French Emmanuel Macron), the Prime Minister "renewed" her "personal and government congratulations", underlining "the indissoluble bond that unites Italy to the Vicar of Christ". She then referred to the need to end "conflicts in all crisis scenarios where weapons have taken the place of confrontation and dialogue". The crises in Ukraine and the Middle East will inevitably be at the center of the discussions. Last Saturday, Kiev was the destination of the mission in which Merz participated with the coalition of the Volenterosi, for a summit in which Meloni took part only by video link. This time, after the summit of the European Political Community in which both will participate in Tirana, they will meet face to face on Saturday afternoon, and it will be the occasion for an update on bilateral relations. "Collaboration between Italy and Germany is fundamental to address the challenges that characterize the current international context", the Prime Minister reiterated in the congratulatory phone call to Olaf Scholz's successor, about ten days ago. But in the last few hours, the news revealed by Die Welt about the intervention of the SPD, the German Social Democrats, to exclude the reference to Italy among the privileged partners indicated in the coalition pact on which the new government led by the popular Merz was born, has created quite a bit of nervousness within the government. A "sabotage" by the left, according to the Melonians. Middle Eastern tensions and the stabilization of Lebanon are announced as topics of the confrontation with Aoun, while the one with Carney comes a month before the summit of the G7 leaders that Canada will host in June, a year after the one hosted by Italy in Puglia, with the historic first presence of a pontiff at the session on Artificial Intelligence. A path that Meloni hopes to continue, renewing to Leo XVI "Italy's willingness to continue working, together with the Holy See, for an ethical development and at the service of man of artificial intelligence". Moreover, as Palazzo Chigi underlined in the statement on the phone call, the Pope in one of his first speeches, last Saturday, to the cardinals he recalled that the challenge on AI is central "to the defense of human dignity, justice and work".