Giorgia Meloni arrives late in the morning at the summit of the European Political Community in Chisinau, Moldova, which is attended by the leaders of the Union and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. A “more than symbolic” presence, says Meloni, in a country “threatened” by Russia and which “would have already been involved in a sort of domino effect, if the Ukrainians had not defended themselves”.
The message that the prime minister wants to bring to the summit, he says, is therefore of “true openness towards those nations such as Moldova, Ukraine, the Eastern Balkans, Georgia, which are European and yet want to be so at 360 degrees”. These are “challenges that Italy supports”, underlines Meloni, and which should not be interpreted as “challenges for the “entry” of these countries into the EU, but for their “reunification” in the European family”. Meloni finds himself in the words of John Paul II, which he also quotes during his speech at the summit: “He said that Europe must breathe with two lungs, one Western and one Eastern”, recalls the premier.
A push from Italy that also extends to the ongoing discussion on NATO’s borders. An issue that will be addressed at a forthcoming summit, in Vilnius, in July, and on this front too “Italy – Meloni says – is among the supporters of the open-door policy”. Words in line with those pronounced by Zelensky, who asks that “all the countries that border Russia enter the Atlantic Alliance”
The war in Ukraine accelerated these paths. And the crises of this time, “from the pandemic to the migratory one”, underlines Meloni, are “an opportunity to demonstrate that Europe is not a club, that it is not only made up of rules and interests, but that it is a civilization founded on the values of freedom and equality”.
Instead, he does not want to enter the discussion on the Spanish elections, but “as president of the European Conservatives – he admits – I watch the elections with interest”.