Mario Draghi did not think that today, in Florence, his speech would have a reference of burning topicality. In front of the Italian bishops and cardinals, gathered in the convent of Santa Maria Novella to discuss the Mediterranean and immigration, the Prime Minister adds at the end a passage on the tragedy that is being experienced on the eastern borders of Europe: “The events in Ukraine lead us to reiterate that prevarications and abuses must not be tolerated ”.
There is talk of peace in Florence: peace to be pursued at any cost, and at any latitude. In North Africa, Libya and Tunisia, as in the Donbass border. «In moments of crisis – says Draghi – we must defend even more the values in which we believe and which guide us. The coexistence, brotherhood, tolerance that we celebrate must take place beyond the borders of the region in which we live ”.
A few hours earlier, the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, in a report to the Chamber, had frozen the parliamentarians by admitting that the margins for avoiding war become less and less by the hour. There will be no bilateral contact with the Russians, “as long as there are no signs of easing of tensions”. Obviously, statements referring to Draghi’s possible trip to Moscow (now frozen) and provoking the reaction of the Kremlin: “A strange idea of diplomacy”. Tomorrow the EU leaders will meet in Brussels in an extraordinary European Council dedicated to Ukraine.