Italy’s prime minister Enrico Letta is scheduled to travel to Dublin to meet Taoiseach Enda Kenny on November 7th.

Mr Letta (above), who heads a difficult centre-right/centre-left coalition government, is returning the visit made to him in June this year by the Taoiseach.

Given there are no outstanding Italo-Irish bilateral issues, the two prime ministers will concentrate on EU issues such as the planned banking union and Italy’s forthcoming EU presidency, due to begin next June.

Mr Letta (47) has been under pressure since his appointment in May, faced with the recurrent threat that centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi will pull down his executive.

Early this month, however, Mr Letta called Mr Berlusconi’s bluff in parliament to win a bitterly contested confidence vote, in the process causing Mr Berlusconi to make an embarrassing U-turn.