Early recognition of Palestine could be ‘counterproductive,’ Italy’s Meloni says

Recognizing the state of Palestine before it has been established could be “counterproductive,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said.

“I am very much in favor of the state of Palestine, but I am not in favor of recognizing it prior to establishing it,” she told Italian newspaper La Repubblica in an interview published Saturday.

“If something that doesn’t exist is recognized on paper, the problem could appear to be solved when it isn’t,” Meloni said.

“I believe that recognizing the state of Palestine, without there being a state of Palestine, could actually be counterproductive to the objective,” the prime minister said.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced this week that France would be the latest European country — and the first in the G7 — to recognize Palestinian statehood. Macron said Paris will make the recognition at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“The urgency today is to end the war in Gaza and to provide aid to the civilian population,” Macron wrote in a statement posted online. “The French people want peace in the Middle East. It is up to us, the French, together with the Israelis, the Palestinians, and our European and international partners, to demonstrate that it is possible.”

Macron’s announcement was welcomed by Palestinian officials but has been criticized by the United States and Israel, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the decision “rewards terror” following the October 2023 attack by the Hamas militant group on Israel.

Some 147 countries out of the 193 members of the U.N. currently recognize or plan to recognize a Palestinian state. Eleven of the 27 EU member countries have already recognized Palestinian statehood, including Spain, Romania, Sweden, Ireland and Bulgaria.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer has rejected calls to immediately recognize a Palestinian state, while a German government spokesperson said on Friday that Berlin was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term and that its priority is to make “long-overdue progress” toward a two-state solution.