Italy is declining to renew a longstanding defense agreement with Israel, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday, a sharp reversal for her right-wing government.
Ms. Meloni made the announcement on the sidelines of an event in Verona, and a government official said that Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, had sent a letter to his Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz, announcing the decision.
The defense accord, ratified in 2005, established cooperation between the two countries in areas including “defense industry and procurement policy,” importing and exporting military equipment, exchanging technical data and other forms of military collaboration. It has been renewed every five years, and was set for another renewal this month.
Opposition parties had put pressure on the government for over a year to suspend the renewal. Marco Grimaldi, an opposition lawmaker, said the decision was “a victory” for those who had protested Israel’s military offensive in Gaza over the last three years.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar of Israel played down the importance of the agreement. “There isn’t even an agreement,” he wrote in a social media post. “There is a memorandum of understandings that was never materialized or had any substantive content. Israel’s security will not be impacted.”
Until recently, Ms. Meloni’s government had been one of Israel’s closest supporters. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel visited Rome in March 2023, Ms. Meloni described Israel as a “friend and key partner of Italy, in the Middle East and at global level.”
But relations between the two countries have deteriorated sharply. When Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, visited Lebanon on Monday, he angered Israel by posting on X that the trip intended to show Italy’s “solidarity” with Lebanon “following the unacceptable attacks by Israel against the civilian population.” He added: “We must avoid at all costs another escalation like the one in Gaza.”
Israel’s foreign ministry on Monday summoned Luca Ferrari, Italy’s ambassador in Tel Aviv, to protest Mr. Tajani’s comments. Mr. Tajani had summoned Israel’s ambassador to Italy the week before to condemn “the bombings on the Lebanese civilian population,” as well as a gunfire incident earlier this month in which Israeli soldiers fired warning shots at an Italian convoy that was part of a United Nations mission in Lebanon.
Italy’s stance on the Middle East conflict has also worsened relations with President Trump. Speaking to a reporter at Milan daily newspaper Corriere della Sera on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he had been “very shocked” by Ms. Meloni’s decision to not assist the United States in the war against Iran, and by her “letting America do all the work” for Italy, “which gets its oil from Iran.” Ms. Meloni had said on Monday that it was “unacceptable” for Mr. Trump to attack Pope Leo XIV, who has been critical of the war.
“Do people like her? I can’t believe it,” he said in the interview, adding: “I thought she had courage. I was wrong.”
Mr. Trump had in the past described Ms. Meloni as a “fantastic leader and person.” She was the only sitting European leader to attend Mr. Trump’s second presidential inauguration, and had long boasted of having a “privileged relationship” with the American president.
In the interview, Mr. Trump said of Ms. Meloni: “She very different from what I thought she was,” adding that he had not spoken to Ms. Meloni “in a long time.”
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
Elisabetta Povoledo is a Times reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years.
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