Review of the European multiannual budget, war in Ukraine, crisis in the Middle East, EU enlargement, migrants. In her communications to the Chamber, Giorgia Meloni addresses the main topics that deserve the attention of the European Council scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Brussels. An “important Council in which I expect courageous decisions – confesses the Prime Minister –. Italy will make its voice heard.” What occupies the center of attention in the Montecitorio Chamber, however, is the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact, the ESM, the super bonus, and also Italy’s stance at the table with Europe.
Regarding this last point, in particular, the Prime Minister maintains that in foreign policy it is essential “to know how to talk to everyone, and I think that this is also the way to give Italy a leadership role”. “I was very impressed by the fact that reference was made to the great statesmanlike gesture of my predecessor Mario Draghi due to the fact that there was a photograph on the train to Kiev with Scholz and Macron – he emphasizes during the answers -. It’s clear to me that for some, foreign policy was trivially about taking pictures with France and Germany, even when you weren’t bringing anything home. I think that foreign policy is not made up of photographs, I think that Europe is not a trio. ” Words that the Prime Minister herself explains on the sidelines of the ongoing discussion in the Chamber: “It is not an attack on Draghi, but on the Democratic Party which, as always, thinks that all the work that Prime Minister Draghi has done can be summarized in photography with France and Germany. It is not the photo with Macron and Scholz that determines Draghi’s work. He has nothing to do with it, in fact I respected his firmness in the face of the difficulties he had in his majority. His work cannot be resolved in a photograph alongside the leaders of Paris and Berlin.”
With regard to the reform of the Stability Pact, an issue that is not formally on the agenda of the Brussels summit, Meloni recalls that the government has been committed for months “to negotiating conditions that are certainly not simple”. “If, despite very difficult negotiations, the game is still open – he adds – it is because everyone in Brussels recognizes that the Italian government’s position is supported by a serious budgetary policy”. Italy, he specifies, “is not asking for a change in rules to be able to spend without restrictions or waste resources without control, but because it is aware of a context, in which the EU finds itself operating, which is still to be considered exceptional and requires adequate governance to this exceptional context.” Italy’s definitive position, he adds, will have to be taken when it is understood where the negotiations stopped. “We must keep all options open – he admits -. The only thing I am not willing to do is give my consent to a reform of the Stability Pact that this government does not, but that no Italian government will be able to respect in the future.”
However, both Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte dispute the prime minister’s position. For the Democratic secretary, Italy will pay “a very high price for Meloni’s wrong alliances” in Europe “because his friends are enemies of Italian interests. cuts maneuver”. The president of the M5 is also critical: “In the Stability and Growth Pact, he is negotiating a very limited margin of flexibility, especially for 2027. You are not negotiating for yourself, only during the period of its government. interests of ‘Italy, that’s what true patriots do.”
The long-distance duel between Meloni and M5s is also fierce in the Superbonus and Mes. “This government has stopped throwing Italians’ money out of the window”, attack the prime ministers, then putting pressure on Conte about the rescue fund. “Who gave the Italian favorable opinion to a ratification that unfortunately also involves us today, and puts us in a difficult situation because we gave a favorable opinion and did not move forward? The Conte government did this – concludes Meloni -, without a parliamentary mandate, the day after resigning when he was in office only for current affairs and under the cover of darkness.”
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
