Italy is refusing to extend a long-standing defense pact with Israel, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Tuesday, marking a significant turnaround for her right-leaning administration.
Meloni announced the decision at an event in Verona, and a government source stated that Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, had communicated this to his Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz, in a letter.
The defense agreement, approved in 2005, created collaboration between the two nations in sectors such as “defense industry and procurement policy,” trading military equipment, sharing technical information, and engaging in various forms of military partnership.
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It has undergone renewal every five years and was scheduled for another renewal this month.
For more than a year, opposition parties had urged the government to halt the renewal. Marco Grimaldi, a lawmaker from the opposition, stated that the choice was “a triumph” for individuals who had demonstrated against Israel’s military actions in Gaza during the past three years.
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Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar minimized the significance of the agreement. “There isn't even a consensus,” he stated in a social media update. "There exists a memorandum of understanding that never came to fruition or held any meaningful substance." "The security of Israel will remain unaffected."
Up until recently, Ms. Meloni's administration had been among Israel's strongest allies. During Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Rome in March 2023, Meloni referred to Israel as a "friend and essential partner of Italy, both in the Middle East and globally."
However, ties between the two nations have worsened significantly. Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, visited Lebanon on Monday, which upset Israel as he shared on X that the visit aimed to demonstrate Italy’s “solidarity” with Lebanon “after the unacceptable assaults by Israel on the civilian population.” He stated, “We need to prevent, at any cost, another escalation similar to the one in Gaza.”
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On Monday, Israel’s foreign ministry called in Luca Ferrari, the Italian ambassador in Tel Aviv, to express its discontent over Tajani’s remarks. Tajani had called in Israel’s ambassador to Italy the previous week to denounce “the attacks on the Lebanese civilian population,” along with a shooting event earlier this month where Israeli soldiers shot warning rounds at an Italian convoy involved in a United Nations mission in Lebanon.