It doesn’t open or close, it simply slides off. Because for Giorgia Meloni, the future of Mario Draghi at the top of Europe – the one that will come after the vote on 9 June – is mere “philosophy”. The games will only be decided later, when the votes are in black and white and the balance of power is well defined. All this debate around the former prime minister and number one at the ECB almost seems to annoy her. Leaving the Europa Building after a European Council that lasted well beyond the darkest expectations – so much so that at the ‘whistle’ at the end of the summit a spontaneous applause rose from the press room -, the Prime Minister stopped for a press point at the lantern, answering every single question as if he were in a ring.
Abortion, level playing field, prison for journalists, Ilaria Salis’s entry into the field, sale of breaking latest news: she answers question after question, often speaking – 4 times – about fake news. And even on Draghi, he suggests, it is the press that has ’embroidered’. “I am happy that we are talking about an Italian – she begins – but this debate is philosophy. The tendency to decide before the citizens vote will never find me in agreement. It is the citizens who decide the majorities, which is why I will not participate in the debate ” on Draghi yes, Draghi no, Draghi maybe.
“This debate is good for headlines and campaigning – he adds – but that’s not how it works. This tendency to try to decide who does what before citizens vote is a tendency you will never find me on.” And never mind if the words pronounced by ‘Super Mario’ on the eve of the summit sounded to many like a programmatic speech, the route that aims for a significant role in future European structures.
“In June I hope Europe will be different, capable of responding to challenges”
The games are played then, reiterates Meloni, who begins his day by arriving at the Europa Building half an hour before the start of the summit to meet the outgoing president Ursula Von Der Leyen, EPP candidate running for an encore but with a certain anxiety, thanks to the ‘friendly fire’ of the European People’s Party. With her, Meloni will later say when meeting journalists, he spoke about migrants, with the flows “in significant decline”, he claims, proof that the strategy put in place “is producing results”. But it is still a “different” Europe that the Italian prime minister sees after the vote, “capable of responding to the great challenges” that await it.
Because a change of pace must be made, and Enrico Letta’s report – over which the leaders are ‘arguing’ today – and the “radical” change requested by Draghi demonstrate, he points out, that the criticisms made in the past by those who certainly did not boast they had a basis for the label of the convinced pro-European: “until yesterday they told us that everything was fine – claims Meloni, recalling the ‘pedigree’ of Letta and Draghi – today they are dealing with the fact that the priorities are different” .
And she feels she has public opinion on her side: “You can keep repeating that I am a dangerous fascist and you also help me, since I think that the people who see the work of this government realize that the extremists are on one side ‘the other side”, he says. As on the other side, to be precise “on the left” – he accuses – those who would like to change Law 194, but who according to him do not have the courage to say so, to take up the battle.
Meloni vigorously defends the discordant amendment to the Pnrr quater decree on pro-life movements in clinics: “it follows exactly the text of 194”, which is a “balanced law”. Even on the ‘ballet’ staged in compliance with the rules of equal conditions, “there is no TeleMeloni, I don’t accept lessons on democracy from anyone”, he thunders.
While prison for journalists – another piece of news that has inflamed the debate – “already exists, it is an FDI law that is removing it”. She, she assures, defends “freedom of the press”, and in fact ensures that her ‘little hand’ is not there – “I have read many falsehoods and surreal reconstructions” – behind the sale of the breaking latest news, at the center of the Eni-Angelucci negotiation: ” I don’t know if those who inspire these readings were used to using state subsidiaries to solve the private problems of friends or to cram relatives in, it may have been the case but that’s not my interpretation of what the subsidiaries are for.”
“Salis candidate? I don’t know how much it helps…”
On the Salis case – while the candidacy for Avs is first denied and then announced – Meloni assures that the Government will continue to do its job: “nothing changes” regarding the detention of the 39-year-old teacher, “it will be guaranteed in any case as is right”. “The politicization of the matter, as I have already said in the past, I don’t know how much it can help the case itself”, but “I don’t allow myself to judge Salis’ personal choices”.
Read also