French president Macron meets with Rubio, Witkoff at Élysée
French president Emmanuel Macron has just formally welcomed Rubio and Witkoff, accompanied by France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
Their meeting is about to get under way, and the French presidency said that Macron spoke with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy just before meeting the US delegation.
Key events
US hails ‘very special relationship’ with Italy’s Meloni as country ramps up defence spending
Speaking ahead of the Meloni-Trump meeting in Washington, expected to start around 6pm European time (5pm UK), a senior US official told reporters that the president sees the Italian leader as a valuable intermediary with Europe on trade, Nato spending and other issues.
The two leaders have “a very special relationship” and plan to work together on issues such as ending the war in Ukraine, the official told reporters in a conference call, reported by Reuters.
Speaking hours before the leaders’ meeting, Italian economy minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told a parliamentary hearing that he expected the country to meet Nato’s target of 2% of GDP on defence spending this year.
On paper, hitting the 2% goal would require about €11bn, but Italy wants to adjust its accounting criteria to align them to Nato’s rules and list as defence spending items which were previously excluded, Giorgetti said.
Reuters noted that Italy’s spending level is currently one of the lowest among the countries in the military alliance, and it is under pressure from the United States to raise its outlays.
Meloni consults with EU leaders before meeting Trump in ‘difficult moment’ for transatlantic relations
Angela Giuffrida
Giorgia Meloni will attempt to burnish her credentials as a possible bridge between the EU and the US during a high-stakes summit with Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday, the first European leader to meet the US president since he announced and then paused some of his planned trade tariff hikes.
Italy’s far-right prime minister, who has nurtured friendly relations with Trump, arrived in Washington on Wednesday night. The pair will have lunch at 12pm local time before the meeting in the Oval Office, which will be attended by a pool of White House reporters and Italian journalists.
“As you can imagine, I’m feeling no pressure at all,” Meloni joked at an event in Rome this week. “It’s a difficult moment, let’s see how the situation develops, but let’s remember that we have the strength, ability and intelligence to overcome any obstacle.”
Before leaving for Washington, Meloni discussed the summit with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his successor, Friedrich Merz, also discussed the meeting with Meloni, according to reports in the German edition of Politico. Scholz failed to get a meeting with Trump and Merz’s request is reportedly pending.
Venice’s €5 tourist fee returns – and will double for last-minute day-trippers
Angela Giuffrida
Venice’s entrance fee will resume from Friday, with the main novelty this year being that last-minute day-trippers will pay double.
Last year, as part of an experiment aimed at dissuading day visitors during busy periods, Venice became the first major tourist city in the world to charge people to enter.
Although the initiative made little impact on visitor numbers, it did rake in €2.4m for the lagoon city’s coffers, much more than expected, and Venice authorities still believe it will eventually contribute to helping the Unesco world heritage city tackle overtourism.
This year’s levy, which is bookable online, remains €5, but will double if bought within three days before arrival in the city. Furthermore, it has been expanded to apply on 54 dates, mostly weekends, between 18 April and 27 July, almost double the number of days compared with last year.
Last year set a new record for visitors to Venice and its wider area, with more than 3.9 million staying overnight in the city’s historic centre. However, roughly 30 million people visit each year, the majority coming just for the day.
And sticking with Italy for a moment…
Bulgarian government survives no confidence vote
The Bulgarian government, led by Rosen Zhelyazkov, survived a vote of no confidence launched over what the opposition says was its failure to fight against widespread corruption, BTA news agency reported.
Reuters explained that the no-confidence motion, the second this month, was initiated by the populist MECh party and backed by lawmakers from the Vazrazhdane and Velichie parties. It failed to secure the necessary majority.
Russia, Belarus not invited to second world war commemoration event in Berlin
Deborah Cole
The ambassadors of Russia and Belarus will not be invited to the German parliament’s commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the second world war’s end over concerns they could “exploit” the event for anti-Ukraine propaganda.
The ceremony in the Bundestag lower house on 8 May marking the allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany will include several representatives of the diplomatic corps in Berlin but bar the envoys from Moscow and Minsk based on “the government’s assessment on the invitation of representatives”, a parliament spokesperson said.
“This assessment led to the ambassadors of the Russian Federation and Belarus, among others, not being invited.”
The embassies of Russia and Belarus did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But the Russian ambassador, Sergey Nechayev, criticised the foreign ministry’s guidance as a “bitter disappointment”, telling the newspaper Berliner Zeitung that the traditional anniversary commemorations were “part of the path to our reconciliation”, which such decisions “endanger”.
Jakub Krupa
As we await further updates from the talks taking place at the Élysée, let me bring you some other stories from around Europe.
Some countries try to ‘derail’ Russia’s relations with US, top negotiator claims
Meanwhile, Russia’s top economic negotiator claimed that some countries were trying to “derail” Moscow’s talks with the United States, as the two sides work towards normalising ties.
“There are a lot of people, structures, countries trying to disrupt our dialogue with the United States. There is a very active propaganda against Russia going on in the United States in various mass media,” Kirill Dmitriev, who is also the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, told reporters, AFP said.
French president Macron meets with Rubio, Witkoff at Élysée
French president Emmanuel Macron has just formally welcomed Rubio and Witkoff, accompanied by France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
Their meeting is about to get under way, and the French presidency said that Macron spoke with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy just before meeting the US delegation.
Paris talks with allies focused on ‘paths to fair and lasting peace’, Ukraine’s foreign minister says
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha has just posted on update on his separate talks with British, French and German partners at the Élysée earlier today.
He said they “discussed the paths to a fair and lasting peace, including full ceasefire, multinational contingent, and security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Élysée meetings in Paris get under way
First meetings of the day are now under way, with White House envoy Steve Witkoff meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic adviser Emmanuel Bonne at the Élysée.
Russia blames Europe for continuing war in Ukraine
And we have just heard from Moscow, with the Kremlin welcoming today’s meeting in Paris as a chance for Witkoff to update Europeans on his long conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin last week.
“The United States is continuing to work in this direction with the Europeans and with the Ukrainians,” Peskov said.
“Unfortunately, from the Europeans we see a focus on continuing the war,” he said, as reported by Reuters.
‘We must put pressure on killers,’ Zelenskyy urges partners
Setting the scene for today’s meetings in Paris, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged partners to “put pressure on the killers” after another Russian attacks on Dnipro, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk overnight, which left three people dead, and 28 injured.
In a post on Telegram, he said that every defence package for Ukraine is “literally protecting lives,” as “Russia uses every day and every night to kill.”
“We must put pressure on the killers and help life in order to end this war and guarantee a reliable peace,” he said.
“I want to thank all the partners who are using their capabilities in this way. Wars are stopped by force – [the use of] force against the aggressor … in defence of life,” he said.
‘Drug-dealing scum’ most likely behind French prison attacks, French minister says
Drug-traffickers were most likely behind an unprecedented wave of attacks against French prisons though foreign influence and the far-left remain possible instigators, French interior minister Bruno Retailleau said.
“It’s most likely drug-dealing scum. It is one of the most credible scenarios,” Retailleau told RTL radio, Reuters reported.
The news agency reported that at least nine prison facilities and affiliated institutions have been targeted with nightly arson and other attacks this week and a car was set alight at the home of a prison guard.
Former UK minister says he is ‘disgusted’ by Trump’s ‘weasel language’ on Russia
Martin Pengelly
Pronouncing himself “disgusted” by Donald Trump’s favorable attitude to Russia and Vladimir Putin, the former UK defence minister Grant Shapps said the US president calling a Russian missile strike that killed dozens in Ukraine last weekend a “mistake” was an example of “weasel language we used to hear … from the IRA” terrorist group.
“All anybody needs Putin to do is get the hell out of a democratic neighboring country,” Shapps told the One Decision podcast, regarding attempts to end the war in Ukraine that has raged since Russia invaded in February 2022.
“And I just have to [put] this on record: it disgusts me, I feel disgusted [by] the idea that the leader of the free world cannot tell the difference between the dictator who locks up and murders his opponents and invades innocent democratic countries and the country itself that has been invaded.
“This lack of moral clarity is completely demoralizing for the rest of the democratic world.”
Full story:
Morning opening: Diplomatic blitz
Easter is just round the corner, but in a last push before the break there is a lot of high-stake diplomacy planned for today.
US state secretary Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff are in Paris this morning for meetings with European partners on Ukraine, Middle East, and other foreign and trade policy issues.
The pair is expected to meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, but also three EU foreign ministers: Britain’s David Lammy, France’s Jean-Noël Barrot, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock.
A Ukrainian delegation is also in town, led by top Zelenskyy’s aide Andriy Yermak and accompanied by foreign minister Andriy Sybiga and defence minister Rustem Umerov.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni went the other way, as she is in Washington DC to meet with US president Donald Trump later today.
French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu is also stateside, with a planned meeting with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
It is not clear what, if anything, of what they discuss will be made public – but you can be sure that you will find all the updates we can get for you here.
It’s Thursday, 17 April 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.