Matteo Salvini and Giuseppe Conte return to harshly press the Draghi government on sending weapons to Ukraine, to which they are both strongly opposed. “Let’s ask who these weapons are going to, let’s remember the flight from Afghanistan. I believe it is absolutely right, right and fair to defend Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people themselves believe they desperately want a ceasefire. I believe that the time has come to force and persuade the parties to sit around a table “for peace,” says the secretary of the League, answering a question about sending further weapons to Kiev, host of Radio Capital. And he reiterates: «I don’t think that after two and a half months the answer is other weapons. Two and a half months ago we voted with conviction (the Ukrainian decree, ed) but now we must ask ourselves what distances peace and what brings it closer ”. Same position as Conte, who asked to vote in the classroom on any new mailings.
Salvini: “Let’s ask ourselves where the weapons we are giving to the Ukrainians go, explain to me the difference between offensive and defensive weapons”
However, this creates problems in the 5 stars, not only for the premier and the secretary of the Pd Enrici Letta. Conte’s position – very opposed to sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, and in fact in a very critical position towards the official line of the Draghi government – is arousing not a few discontent in the M5S parliamentary group. All the more so in a moment in which the M5S leader seems oriented to ask for a parliamentary passage, without the bond of trust, on the issue of arms and Ukraine, which could represent a big problem for the executive, given that in fact the Lega di Matteo Salvini it is on the same position of opposition or strong skepticism about sending weapons.
Concerns were rekindled by Conte’s participation in a debate on Ukraine last night on TV. The former premier M5S chose Rete4 – the TV interview with Serghey Lavrov – to intimidate: “What we have been invoking for days is necessary and urgent: that Prime Minister Draghi and the Minister of Defense [Guerini] come to Parliament and meet with the representatives of the people. We are against the sending of ever more lethal and offensive weapons – thundered Conte with Paolo Del Debbio – but the real issue is the political direction: Italy is participating in providing aid to Ukraine, but with what objectives? “.
And so something among the M5S MPs is moving. The growing tensions between the 5 Star Movement and Prime Minister Mario Draghi worry a part of the grillini in Parliament, who are now calling for a group assembly to ask the leader Conte for a clarification on the political line regarding the hottest dossiers: from the question Ukrainian relations with the executive, passing through the alliance with the Democratic Party, which now appears shaken and rusty after frictions and even recent clashes, for example the dispute within the council of ministers over the incinerator in Rome. This of the assembly is the intention of a group of M5S senators, who have already requested the group leader Mariolina Castellone to convene a meeting. In the assembly, the parliamentarians will ask for a “collective reflection” given the deterioration of relations between M5S and the government, and a debate on foreign policy, starting with Italy’s international position in the light of the positions taken by the 5-star leader Giuseppe Conte on the Ukrainian crisis.
All this happens just at the moment yesterday, the Ukrainian foreign minister congratulates his counterpart Luigi Di Maio, of the M5S, for the strongly pro-European line taken by the Farnesina and obviously by Palazzo Chigi. Minister Dmytro Kuleba had an interview with Di Maio, whom he thanked for “Italy’s leadership on sanctions” on Russia, “including the oil embargo, and arms deliveries to Ukraine”. During the telephone conversation, Kuleba writes, the “security guarantees” for Ukraine were also discussed.
There therefore seem to be at least two movements tactfully, a knot that can weigh on Mario Draghi’s navigation.