The visit, part of a regular series of meetings between the Italian and French leaders, comes amid deep differences over the issue between Paris and Rome, which have also been at odds over French takeover bids for Italian companies and policy in Libya.
A standoff at the northern Italian border town of Ventimiglia, where French gendarmes have sent back Tunisian migrants trying to cross the frontier, has been a visible symbol of growing acrimony between the two countries.
Each has accused the other of flouting the spirit of the Schengen treaty, intended to allow free movement within the European Union, as they have grappled with a wave of migrants arriving in the wake of the upheavals in North Africa this year.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said there was no question of scrapping the principle of free circulation within the EU but the treaty needed a "check-up".
'All treaties grow old'
"All treaties inevitably grow old," he told the daily Il Sole 24 Ore on Sunday. "The Berlin Wall of North Africa has come down and the context in which these treaties, and I think also the Lisbon Treaty, were written has changed radically."
Officials hope that the two sides can agree joint proposals to take to Brussels that could allow border controls to be reinstated temporarily under some circumstances.
"Schengen is facing growing difficulties," a French official in Paris said. "We think we may have to go as far as [...] including a suspension clause in cases of necessity."
AFP quoted a colleague of French President Nicolas Sarkozy as calling for the Schengen pact to be upgraded.
"The governance of Schengen is failing. It seems there is a need to reflect on a mechanism that will allow, in case of a systemic failure of an external [EU] border, to intervene through a provisional suspension, until such time as the weakness is corrected," the French source said.
Italian daily La Stampa writes that Berlusconi and Sarkozy will send a joint letter to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Commission President José Manuel Barroso.
The letter will reportedly ask the EU to do more to contain illegal migration from North Africa, ask for solidarity within the Union, including sharing the burden of hosting immigrants, and call for checkos to be strengthened at the Schengen zone's external borders.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
