“India & Italy are closer than ever”: PM Modi & Meloni deliver powerful joint address | #Melodi

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Prime Minister Modi.

[00:00:04]>> Again, it's an honor and a pleasure to greet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his delegation here in Rome uh on a day which I truly believe is a historic day for the relations between our two nations.

[00:00:20]My friend Narendra Modi has been leading India since 2014.

[00:00:27]uh but today this is his first bilateral mission to Italy. The last visit of an Indian prime minister on a bilateral mission prior to this one dates back to two the year 2000 26 years ago and uh today with this visit not only are we bridging this gap but together we have decided to re vitalize our relations.

[00:00:52]This visit is the apex uh of a path that we have built together with determination uh to strengthen the ties between ourselves uh all the way up to the highest level ever.

[00:01:07]It was a very swift journey. In 2023, I traveled to New Delhi and on that occasion, we launched our strategic partnership. The next year in 2024, uh during the G20 summit in Brazil, uh we met with the prime minister and we assigned our strategic uh joint action plan 2025 2029. And today here in Rome uh we are further strengthening our relation uh all the way up to the special strategic partnership the highest ever reached in the relations between our two nations. So I think it's safe to say that now Italy and India are closer than they have ever been. Our relations uh are now uh capable of expressing uh their fullest potential.

[00:02:00]This is something which of course uh uh has been achieved thanks to our teams, our ministers and diplomats who have worked hard over the years. It's something which is uh very much brought about by our productive systems interested in one another as proven by the fact that over the past year we celebrated three Italy India business forums. But it is also due to the over seven meetings that uh uh I have had with Prime Minister Modi over the past three and a half years during which we have gotten to to deeply know one another and our respective points of view. We have also created a uh an honest friendship based on respect and mutual trust.

[00:02:41]I have personally uh learned to appreciate the vision, the pragmatism and the leadership of the prime minister as shown by how popular he is amongst his citizens after many years in government. And I think that this friendship of ours, this relationship of ours has very much helped us to work so swiftly on strengthening our bilateral relations. Uh as I was saying today is a historic event because uh the relations between Italy and India uh are further strengthened. Now what goals have we given ourselves? Well, we certainly want to uh foster our already strong trade up to 20 billion euros all the way up to the up from the current 14 billion by 2029. This is a very ambitious target which can be achieved also by taking advantage of the uh potential stemming from the free trade agreement signed between the EU and India.

[00:03:41]This is a target that can be achieved also because our economic and productive ecosystems are highly complimentary to one another. the size uh the digital infrastructure India's uh innovative uh dynamism combines perfectly with Italy's industrial strength, our manufacturing excellence, our uh ability to uh promote technological integration. This complimentarity can lead to business investments uh quality uh employment industrial cooperation and from this point of view we are determined to explore all of these opportunities fully in this context. We are also uh engaged in promoting the uh innov India initiative which will lead to the creation of an Italian center in New Delhi that can foster cooperation between our talents, our innovative ecosystems, our startups, enterprises, universities and research institutes.

[00:04:40]And speaking of innovation, let me mention the joint efforts promoted by Italy and India to uh ensure uh that the development of artificial intelligence which is the uh largest and most disruptive revolution of our era can be responsible and focused on the human being. We believe that regulation, rules and security need to go hand in hand so that artificial intelligence can unleash its positive potential by meeting the uh needs citizens have and uh by continuing to serve human beings and there are a number of political initiatives that we have worked on. Let me mention that during Italy's president's of the G7, we had the a number of initiatives, India organized the AI summit with the same goal in mind and on the same wavelength.

[00:05:31]>> Our aim is clearly to enhance the complimentarity between our two countries in many other sectors and we have broadly discussed them today as well as last night. advanced manufacturing, infrastructures, energy, space, economy, defense.

[00:05:53]This is a a cooperation sector we are working hardly on and well critical minerals agro industry maritime transportation tourism and culture which are something very important and opportunity for two millennium old civilizations important which are going to be signed today follow this path and they aim at strengthening our cooperation in a wide spectrum of sectors. And today the work of today will be made even richer after this statements to the press by the meeting among some of the main representatives of the business world both from Italy and India. We want to have an exchange of views with them in order to understand how to better improve the synergies between the production sectors and the industrial world. And as far as we are concerned in order to be able to attract more direct investments. And then as we know very well the strength of the relationship between two countries is not only measured by the depth of the political relationship or terms of economic figures but it is also uh indicated by the ability to bring our populations together to be able to create opportunities for mutual knowledge.

[00:07:17]That's why we decided to launch uh the Italy India year of culture and tourism for 2027 which is a unique opportunity to have our century old cultures develop a dialogue and make them more and more connected. We have another uh feature in common. We are two peninsulas, two platforms, logistic platforms which are projected in crucial areas of the world, the Mediterranean and Indoacific area.

[00:07:45]We think that strengthening the interconnection between these two important area is of extreme importance.

[00:07:51]That's the reason why we wanted to further develop IMC which is the infrastructural corridor, economic corridor between Europe, Middle East and India which was established during the G20 summit and this initiative we strongly believe in because we think that it can unleash a potential and wonderful potential for our trade for our businesses and our relations. Italy and India share a joint vision on many of the huge challenges of our times.

[00:08:18]International stability, protecting rules, economic security, the resilience of the value chains, the promotion of peace, inclusive development, and we discussed many of the complex scenarios we are faced with.

[00:08:32]We talked about Ukraine. We talked about our commitment to achieve a lasting and fair peace as to the Iranian crisis. to exchange their views with the joint hope that the negotiations peace negotiations will continue and be and reach a positive conclusion in a framework which we know is very critical and very shaky in both scenarios. We are increasingly interconnected and Italy and Italy will continue to play the role. We shall not mention the fact that it is extremely important to have freedom on navigation in the Indo-Pacific sector is where we share uh the same vision of a free, inclusive and open Indo-Pacific and Italy will continue to play their roles. Italy and India will continue to play their roles possibly together to contribute in peace and stability. So dear prime minister, thank you very much again for being here. This visit of yours is an honor for us and open opens a new page in the relations with our countries. It's not going to be the last one in this long book that you are writing together with resolution doing our work in the best possible way.

[00:09:47]There is an Indian word which states that very well which is parish.

[00:09:52]Paris which means hard work, constant commitment, fatigue. a word which I know is very often used in India and it is often used in a very popular uh way of saying used to build our relations in this way with a hard work which becomes success at the end. Thank you very much >> your excellency prime minister Melani Don delegates media namaskar Bonjouro delegation.

[00:10:47]Prime Minister Melan, eternal city.

[00:11:04]very constituency or cablehrich.

[00:11:38]Friends, Prime Minister Melan teach upgrade Special strategic partnership friends.

[00:12:38]Bharat Italy joint strategic action plan 2025 to 2029.

[00:12:50]practical or futuristic billion.

[00:13:15]So say Italian companies growth story.

[00:13:36]leaders ambitionally design or precision scale talent or affordable innovation powerhouse.

[00:14:05]design and develop in India and Italy and deliver for the world fashion leather logistic mobility manufacturing India, EU, FTA, Italy, Prime Minister Melon.

[00:14:57]business communities friends, technology or innovation partnership engine AI, quantum space or civil nuclear energy startups, research centers India Italy innovation center friends.

[00:15:55]Defense industrial road map development or co-roduction maritime powers connectity Shipping modernization logistics or blue economy project friends or Italy.

[00:17:13]responsible democracies finan network, Ukraine, or diplomacy friends.

[00:17:50]People yogi or diplomacy bat or Italy anniversary year.

[00:19:00]Prime Minister, Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement.

[00:19:22]Excellency.

[00:19:34]for