Italy’s Meloni Stakes Out Mediator Role in Balancing EU’s China Ties

(Bloomberg) — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered to broker better trade relations between China and the European Union, calling on President Xi Jinping to “balance out” commercial relations between the bloc and the world’s second-biggest economy.

“Italy can have an important role in EU relations and creating balanced relations,” Meloni said Monday in her first official visit to China since coming to power in 2022. “We need a rules-based order” as a way “to guarantee stability, peace, trade that remains free,” she said.