Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu will pay a working visit to Rome on Wednesday and Thursday, where he will take part in the third joint meeting of the Romanian and Italian governments, organised 13 years after the previous intergovernmental summit, and will hold talks with Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni and will be received in audience by His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican.
According to a government press release, the prime minister will have several high-level meetings with Italian officials and will meet representatives of the Romanian community in Italy.
Thus, prime minister Ciolacu will hold talks with the prime minister of the Italian Republic, Georgia Meloni, and will participate in the plenary meeting of the two official delegations and in the signing ceremony of bilateral sectoral documents.
The programme of the visit will also include a meeting with the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri.
According to the press release, an important component of the visit is the economic one, in which several members of the delegation will participate in the Romanian-Italian Economic Forum.
During the visit, prime minister Marcel Ciolacu will be received in audience by His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican and will have a meeting with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.
The press release recalls that the Romanian-Italian bilateral relationship is based on the Strategic Partnership concluded on April 17, 1997, which was upgraded to the level of Enhanced Strategic Partnership on January 9, 2008.
The third meeting between the Romanian Government and the Italian Council of Ministers aims to build on the Strengthened Strategic Partnership between Romania and Italy and further boost bilateral, European and Euro-Atlantic cooperation, the press release states.
On the occasion of the meeting, the updated Declaration of the Enhanced Strategic Partnership will be signed, which sets out cooperation priorities for the coming period based on the convergence of interests between the two countries, as well as several bilateral sectoral cooperation documents in areas such as entrepreneurship and SMEs, tourism, civil protection, the source said.
According to the press release, in economic terms, Italy has been Romania's second trading partner for several years, with a share in our country's total trade of around 9.5 percent.