The hypothesis of a phone call between Mario Draghi and Vladimir Putin raised in these hours must be read on the international level but also on the internal one. The request of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj to include Italy among the countries that in perspective will be able to be part of a peace contingent to defend the Ukrainian territory from possible future aggressions, confirms the interest in an active participation that is seen on the domestic front with more and more concern.
I distinguish on defense spending
This is demonstrated by the distinctions of the League and above all of Giuseppe Conte and the 5 Star Movement, on the occasion of the debate on the eve of the Prime Minister’s trip to Brussels and above all the resistance to supporting the expenditure for the increase of defense funds. An increase that – it is always worth remembering – is actually expected from 2014 but that the governments that have followed since then – including the yellow-green one led by Conte – have avoided achieving but have not even wanted to cancel.
Conte’s balancing act
Putin’s belligerence and the acceleration towards a European defense, however, made the decision urgent. Conte, after a sort of either / or in which he anticipated that M5s would not confirm the increase in spending on arms, thus confirming the hypothesis of an exit from the majority and a government crisis, now assures that his party has not no intention to question the executive but that a “common sense” solution must be found. We will see shortly which of the two positions brought forward within twenty-four hours by the former premier M5s will be confirmed (in the meantime Conte may have returned to be legitimized President of the Movement).
The Draghi-Putin phone call and the internal political confrontation
And it cannot be excluded that the prospect of the telephone confrontation between Draghi and Putin may become an element to be played also in the internal political confrontation. Certainly the Northern League will do it. For now, Matteo Salvini’s pacifist version has generated a lot of skepticism even within his own party. But the resumption of a confrontation with Moscow could provide a breath of fresh air to the leader of the Carroccio who after the fool in Poland is forced to witness the further leap forward of the president of the Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. The home front remains the hottest. To feed it there are the administrative in June (and the referendums on Justice), the sudden slowdown of the recovery and a future complicated by the energy crisis, the new international order and the arrival of millions of refugees.
War and energy crisis on the eve of the election campaign
An explosive mixture on which the electoral campaign for the 2023 and post-Draghi policies will be triggered. At the moment we record a deeply divided center-right, as also demonstrated by the guerrilla on the candidacies for administrative and regional in Sicily, and above all the non-acceptance by Salvini (and Berlusconi) of Meloni’s leadership. But the center-left front is perhaps worse off. The Cinquestelle are divided into Parliament and outside. M5s continues to lose support and – as confirmed by Conte’s stances – to prove to be a fragile and unreliable ally for Enrico Letta’s Pd.