Rome Next? PM Modi’s Europe Tour Likely to Expand

India

and Italy are working towards a visit to Rome by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Indo-Nordic Summit in Oslo next month. The Nordic Summit involves meetings with leaders of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark and after that, PM Modi could fly to Rome. The details are still being worked out, highly-placed officials said. A visit to France for the G-7 meeting and subsequently, bilaterals with French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders is likely in June. The G-7 countries are the United States of America, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan, all industrialised countries, but India is a regular invitee to the meetings as one of the world's biggest economies.

PM Modi and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni have met about half a dozen times in the last two years and New Delhi and Rome are looking at closer cooperation in areas like defence, high technology and trade and investment. Already, the Indian defence ministry has lifted the ban on Leonardo, the defence manufacturing giant, and cooperation in areas like space and artificial intelligence is on the anvil. Trade figures, currently close to $15 billion can improve, particularly after the recent India-European Union Free Trade Agreement. Italy and also, countries like Greece, are keen to work together with India on the IMEEC or India-Midle East-Europe-Economic Corridor, but the current uncertainty in West Asia, with the Iranians fighting the USA and Israel remains a concern. PM Meloni was in India during the G-20 summit in 2023 and deputy prime minister and foreign minister Antonio Tajani has been in New Delhi twice in recent months.

India and Italy are “cultural superpowers,” it has often been said and the display of a Caravaggio painting (Mary Magdalane in Ecstasy) in New Delhi at the instance of the Italian government was an important event. Importantly, Rabindranath Tagore visited Italy in 1925 and 1926: both countries see the visits as important milestones.