Measures to be taken against expensive bills. The income from work. The courtyard of reforms, starting with presidentialism. And then again the bitterness for the attacks of the left, the truth about the relationship with Mario Draghi and, above all, the pride of being the first woman to lead the government in Italy: «That would mean breaking the glass roof». Four days after the vote, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the favorite party in the polls, speaks with Il Tempo and draws what, according to her, Italy will be in the next 5 years. Without avoiding uncomfortable topics such as the debate on the resources of the NRP and the position to be taken in Europe in relation to the Hungarian Viktor Orban.
President Meloni, what measures will the center-right government implement in the first 100 days?
“It is clear that the absolute priority right now is to protect families and businesses from rising energy bills. The most effective measure is to set a European ceiling on the price of gas and to decouple the price of gas from that of energy produced from other sources. This last intervention, if made by Europe, would have a more significant impact, but Italy can also adopt it autonomously. It would cost 3-4 billion, without the need to resort to a new budget change, and would have an immediate effect. Immediately afterwards, the work emergency must be addressed. We need to support employment, cut the tax burden, encourage companies that create jobs according to the principle “the more you hire, the less you pay”. So we must put the family back at the center of political choices, with structural and long-term interventions: only in this way can we get out of the demographic glaciation into which Italy has plunged. Finally, we must begin the work of reforms, starting with what we consider the mother of all reforms: presidentialism”.
She may be the first female prime minister and the first right-wing party leader to lead the government. It started at 1.9% and now represents at least a quarter of the electorate. After 70 years of the Republic, are we in a historic transition for Italy?
“I really hope that the Italians choose to support this change on 25 September. If a woman were to lead the government for the first time, it would mean breaking the glass roof, unmasking a taboo that penalizes women. And it would not be just a symbolic passage because – as we explained in our program – we are determined to concretely favor the path towards equality and overcoming the gender pay gap, helping women to reconcile work with the right to motherhood. If in recent years we have grown so much it is because the Brothers of Italy put their principles and values before power and in the seats, renouncing to participate in the various rainbow governments that followed. All this, I am convinced, the Italians understood, also because they are the first to suffer the harmful effects of a certain way of doing politics ».
You said that in this election campaign you expected so many attacks, which one did you not expect and what hurt you the most?
“The range of accusations leveled at me and at the Brothers in Italy is limitless. But we have broad shoulders, I think that’s the price to pay for the success we’re enjoying among citizens. The accusations and insinuations related to me being a woman and a mother are the ones that hurt me the most. I grew up in a matriarchal family, I worked and got involved in politics from a young age, I try to reconcile my roles as a mother and a political leader: I know how much effort all this costs for a woman. And today I even see the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta who wants to explain to me what it means to be a woman… The truth is that the left and some feminists literally go crazy with the idea that a woman of the right can become prime minister. They don’t tolerate that I can go where they never dared. But this is what happens when we do ideological feminism and then, instead of struggling to emerge, we are satisfied with what the male leader on duty grants.”
Conte even evoked a civil war against those who will tamper with the citizens’ income; Michele Emiliano said that the right will have to “spit blood”. Are you worried about what might happen after the vote? How can this country be pacified?
“We live in an election campaign marked by sterile hate campaigns and systematic provocations. We heard a former prime minister and an incumbent president of the region using tones that were not very institutional and actually seemed to invite subversion. I ask myself: what would have happened if these words had been spoken by an exponent of the FdI? Unfortunately, the left takes refuge in terrorism and democratic alarm because it has nothing to say and tries to evade its responsibilities. We’ve never been teased in recent weeks. The nation will only be pacified when the left stops using history as a club against the adversary, to point out all those who do not take its side as monsters or as a danger to democracy, when it stops positioning itself as a censor issuing licenses to presentability without any title, when abroad it puts the interest of the nation above the interest of its own faction. This election campaign has shown us that the center-right looks to the future with maturity and responsibility, while others are still prisoners of old patterns. They demonize us in the name of supposedly noble values for the sole purpose of preserving their worn-out system of power ».
She said she’s talked a lot over the past few months with Draghi. Is there any advice he gave you that you liked best?
“President Draghi did not give me advice. Last time we spoke, we simply discussed the energy crisis, in a normal conversation between the Chief Executive and the main opposition force. That is all. We read imaginative reconstructions of all kinds. My opinion of Draghi is well known: no one questions his qualities, but governments choose us citizens with cohesive majorities, with alliances decided before the vote and which are not changed in Parliament. And that is exactly what we need to restart Italy and restore the credibility of politics.”
A hot topic is NRP funds. Will you review the Plan and what points do you think need to be changed?
“Firstly, if the FdI and the center-right win the elections, Italy will certainly not lose the PNRR money. In this case, we will try to spend it faster than the so-called “government of the best”. Several nations in Europe are considering changes to their PNRR plans, which were drafted under different conditions than they are now, according to the European Commission. Obviously we don’t intend to intervene in projects that have already started, in things that are already being done. We need a coupon to understand if the allocation of resources as imagined is still the best possible in the face of the changed scenario. But most of all I care that the money gets to the ground. The problem of adapting tenders to the increase in raw materials cannot be avoided’.
As prime minister, he may have to agree in Europe to cut transfers to Hungary. Will it confirm the negative vote expressed by the FdI parliamentarians in Strasbourg? And could that complicate our relations with other EU partners?
“At the first point of the centre-right program are the historic pillars of Italian foreign policy: Europe and the Atlantic Alliance. Our location is not in question. Hungary is a democratic state. Of course, Eastern European models are different from ours because until the 1990s we abandoned them under the Soviet yoke. Now, more than ever, we must try to give them a hand, accompany them if there really are national regulations that do not guarantee the transparency of contracts and that can jeopardize the efficient and correct spending of European funds. The text voted on in Strasbourg and the ongoing debate, on the other hand, are both vitiated by an excess of ideology. It is a very political document, which has very little to do with how that money is spent. The text essentially says that Hungary’s access to European resources must be blocked, but that decision must be made on the basis of detailed accusations, not on the basis of political sympathy or distaste. Perhaps we have not realized the situation in which we find ourselves. There is conflict at the heart of Europe, the more astute choice would be to work to bring European nations closer together rather than distance them. We cannot gift allies to our opponents. And it seems to me that my concern is also shared by the US State Department, which stresses the need not to sever a link with a NATO member country, even more so at this stage”.
Source: IL Tempo
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
