Vance set to meet Meloni during visit to Rome.

US vice president JD Vance plans to travel to Italy later this month, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, however the Rome visit has yet to be finalised.

According to the provisional programme, Vance should arrive in the Italian capital on Friday 18 April and depart on 20 April, coinciding with the Easter weekend.

It was not immediately clear whether the planned visit is intended to correspond with Easter or whether it is coincidental.

Neither was it clear whether Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, planned to visit the Vatican during his trip to Rome.

US diplomats in Rome have reportedly sought to arrange a meeting between Vance and Italy's right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who was the only EU leader to attend US President Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

In a recent interview with The Financial Times, Meloni said she sympathised with Vance's scathing attack on European leaders that he made in Germany in February, and dismissed the idea that Italy will have to choose sides between the US and Europe as “childish” and “superficial”.

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