There are some keywords that help to read the state of the art of the majority Melons after the bilateral meeting in Paris, before next week’s European Council – the last one before the summer break – and in the hours in which the majority is grappling with the stabilization of Forza Italia post-Berlusconi, twists around Mes in the House and on Work decree she is defeated by a tie in the Senate Labor Committee.
Let’s try to line them up, there are six of them, with as many hashtags: #fatigue; #stall; #need; #EU alliances; #stability pact; #equilibrium (of the Meloni majority). The “fatigue” is the one perceived in the bilateral meeting at the Elysée when Macron received Giorgia Meloni on Monday after seven months of tensions and rapprochements and new frosts: circumstantial smiles; a few quick statements by the two leaders before the meeting and without questions, with her saying “we are not kids who argue, the interests of nations come first” and he replying with “history unites us”. Above all an economic pact signed at the Quirinale in 2021 whose guarantor is Sergio Mattarella who in fact was at lunch at the Elysée ten days ago.
if south Ucraina folder we don’t even need to argue, the evergreen synthesis passes on the rest: “Many steps forward”. And here the need for an agreement already emerges as long as it is. We are at the second key word: the need for a Rome-Paris axis now that the new rules of the Stability Pact (another key word) are being negotiated in Brussels which see northern Europe – including Germany – united against southern Europe and the countries with high debt. The German hawk Lindner demands an annual cut of at least 1% of GDP.
Minister Giorgetti put it this way: “The technical aspects do not prevail over the political ones”, that is, excluding the expenses for digital, green and energy investments from the calculation of deficit and debt. Paris warned Berlin: “The rigidity has already led us into a recession.” Under these conditions, Paris and Rome are forced to remain on the same side, whether the two protagonists like it or not. There are common interests and concrete realities. For example, as Macron announced, the Franco-Italian Samp-T anti-missile system is already operational in Ukraine. And it is only the first step of a larger project. Even the appetites of the French Vivendi on the Italian market are conditioned by the Pact of the Quirinale: muggings and assaults are prohibited. However, necessity fails to cover the #stalemate. For example on immigration. It is true, Paris and Rome follow the same line on the principle of external defense of European borders and the need to change the rules of stay and asylum.
But with Libya and Tunisia, where the flows start from, Rome and Paris do not have a shared approach. On June 11, Meloni took von der Leyen and the Dutch premier Rutte to Tunis to promise European money while waiting for the Monetary Fund to move. In return, however, the European mission has not obtained any commitment from President Saied, either on reforms or on the idea of making Tunisia like Turkey. Yesterday the French interior minister went to Tunis German medicine and announced a $26 million aid package to block departures to Europe. Saied kept silent. Do you agree? Even with Libya the approaches are parallel but not coincident: Paris, for example, would not have appreciated Rome’s non-agreed contacts with the General Haftar from whose beaches, in the meantime, one hundred thousand people have left.
However, it can be said that France and Italy will be on the same side in next week’s European Council (June 29-30). Now, on all of this there are two stony guests who were not on the bilateral agenda but determine all the dynamics between now and next June (2024) when we will vote for the Europeans. First of all there is a topic of European alliances. Macron and Meloni are opponents in Europe. Worse, the French president sees the insidious in the Italian premier front woman of the right-wing wave that seems to be taking shape in Europe.
It is no longer the “danger Le Pen“, indeed, the distances between the two women of the right are now very marked. Rather, Meloni leads the group of conservatory who would love to bring the Ppe and give life, in a year, to a center-right majority by giving the green light to the mix Ursula (Ppe, Pse, Liberals). Be careful though that the ratings of Liberals and Renew Europand they could then become decisive.
The second stone guest is the balance of the majority in the Meloni government, that is, relations with Salviniwhich instead “lives” in Strasbourg the same group of Le Pen, and those with Come on Italy which is the only hook and link of the majority with the EPP. Government allies are not making concessions to their prime minister. In fact, they raise the price. The tie with which yesterday in the Labor Commission the government saw a new package of amendments (10) to the Labor decree presented by the Brothers of Italy which arrived when the text was already in the classroom should be read as a warning from Forza Italia.
Some have pointed the finger at Claudio Lotito and Dario Damianithe two Italian senators who immediately clarified: “It was just a mishap, we were busy with something else”. But we know how certain “setbacks” are: they speak more than a thousand words. Instead, the letter from the Chief of Cabinet of Minister Giorgetti (League but with technical quotas) is a clear message to the Meloni government, in which it is said that “the ratification of the Mes strengthens the value of the Btp“. Statement that disavows the line of the government that never wanted to ratify the Mes. And it puts the premier in trouble again. On June 30, the Chamber of Deputies will have to vote on the ratification. Work in the Commission is going slowly. Giorgetti’s message to the entire majority, including the Lega, is very clear: either we ratify the Mes or they don’t give us the installment of the Pnrr and they massacre us with the new economic rules. Meloni had gone to Paris to promote Rome as the site of Expo2030. An almost impossible mission given the care with which Macron received the prince bin Salman and the candidacy of the favourite Riad. But it is clear, from the above, that the goal of the trip was something else.
Journalist originally from Florence graduated in Italian literature with 110 cum laude. Twenty years for Repubblica, nine for L’Unità.
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Claudia Fusani