The energy dossier has priority among what the new government is called to face. It is not only necessary to identify the resources to be allocated to a new package that supports families and businesses affected by high bills, but also to choose which energy policy strategy to implement.
In the short term, therefore, the Meloni executive must find a way to curb the expensive bills. But then he must also think about longer-term strategies, about how to make Italy a safer and more independent country on the energy front. Not surprisingly, the Ministry of Ecological Transition will be renamed the Environment and Energy Security.
Pichetto strategy in line with that of Draghi and Cingolani
The new minister, Gilberto Pichetto, of Forza Italia, has just begun to study the dossiers. Beside him he has the super-consultant wanted by Meloni (on the advice of Mario Draghi): the former minister Roberto Cingolani, a technician who has agreed to help his successor for a few months to extricate himself in very complicated matters. No commissioner by the premier, clarified the staff of the new minister, rejecting the accusations of Angelo Bonelli of “Green Europe” and some press organs. Pichetto for his part, as the first statement after the oath, had pointed out that he will move “in the wake of what has been done so far, especially in terms of energy by Premier Draghi and Minister Cingolani”.
The priorities indicated by Meloni
Prime Minister Meloni, in her speeches to the Chamber and to the Senate, set the main points of her energy program: battle in Europe for a ceiling on the price of gas and for the decoupling of the price of electricity from that of methane (for charge less for electricity from renewable sources, cheaper); emergency measures against expensive bills for businesses and households, seeking funds “in the folds of the budget” and from the extra-profits of energy companies; increase in national gas extraction, now at a minimum; upgrading of renewable sources, eliminating bureaucratic obstacles.
The more “national” objectives
To these objectives, which were already of the Draghi government, Prime Minister Meloni has added others of a more “national” flavor: to create Italian factories of components for renewable sources (especially solar panels) and to avoid “demolishing supply chains of national production excellence »To move on to« dependence on Chinese raw materials ». A clear allusion to the car sector, and to the transition from endothermic engines (Italian excellence) to electric ones (with batteries monopolized by the Dragon).