Not just Paris. The Draghi government headed straight to Berlin. Germany yesterday announced the contract of the new Scholz government, «France will take over the presidency of the EU in a month and will go to the vote in the spring, while Italy is swinging on its internal steps but is looking towards Europe with growing realism. It is above all around these three countries that European politics will move in the coming months ”. Establishing the sure pillars of the Union that awaits us is the former Italian ambassador to Berlin, Michele Valensise, who in the days of the signing of the Quirinal Treaty (today and tomorrow) to strengthen the collaboration between Paris and Rome, broadens the scenario on the role that our country is ready to play among the 27. A leading position, much more assertive and protagonist of the choices than it has been up to now, strengthened not only by the renewed axis with the Elysée. The executive intends to push the strategic alliances further, also making a pact in the North with Germany. The Minister of Economic Development Giancarlo Giorgetti spoke about it on Tuesday, during an Italian-German conference on energy and nuclear power, announcing that the first meetings with the new German executive could be held as early as the first half of 2022.
Why should Italy, in fact, aim to have a political, economic and strategic side only beyond the Alps, and shouldn’t look at Berlin with more confidence (reciprocated)? It is the ever-growing need that emerges from many sides: to strengthen Italian-German relations. “One cannot fail to observe that between Italy and Germany, apart from the indubitable cultural mutual attraction, there is a very flourishing commercial interchange – underlines Ubaldo Villani Lubelli, author of a Vigoni-paper, named after the Italian-German dialogue center in Italy based on Lake Como -: the Italian and German economies are absolutely complementary and although the EU is a more complex body of 27, bilateral relations are still fundamental today ».
We cannot speak of a trilateral one, therefore, because for now the France-Italy-Germany triangle is not closing, but two pacts are living. Yet this should be the trend. Also taking advantage of the “Italian moment” – as the director of Villa Vigoni, Christiane Liermann Traniello defines it -, the Italian magical moment, amid the authority of Draghi, considered by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “eine europäische Vernunft”, a European reason, and the successes of our country in all fields in the world, from music to sport. In short, Italy can assert its voice far more than it has done so far. And it can do it all the more if it reduces with Berlin that “creeping estrangement” between the two countries of which Gian Enrico Rusconi spoke in 2008. The initiative recently launched by MPs Piero Fassino and Francesco Berti with Villa Vigoni is in this direction: creating an open and continuously active channel between Italy and Germany, declined in many areas of collaboration, to face the challenges of the post-pandemic together with Berlin, well finalizing the funds of the Next Generation Eu. It can only be an advantage for both of them to reduce those fifteen hundred kilometers more and more, that is, the distance between Berlin and Rome. This is the direction of the government, which awaits the inauguration of the new German chancellor to try to ignite a dialogue. We will see how lucky and operational.