The surprising equidistance of Giuseppe Conte, who on TV avoids taking sides between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in view of Sunday’s important ballot in France. And the meeting of Matteo Salvini with the re-elected Hungarian premier Viktor Orban in Rome for the visit to the Pope. Perhaps talking about a sign of rapprochement between the yellow-green is too much, but certainly a lot from the M5s that comes almost in unison from the League a further indication of the intolerance to adopt the pro-European and Atlanticist line of the government led by Mario Draghi of which they are part.
The relationship between Orban and Putin
It cannot be overlooked that both Le Pen and Orban are the main and almost the only allies of Vladimir Putin in the European Union. The leader of the Rassemblement national, as also emerged in the televised confrontation with the outgoing president on Wednesday evening, admitted that she was financed by a Russian bank very close to the Kremlin and that she also received money from a Hungarian credit institution. In fact, Orban has never hidden his privileged relationship with the Russian president, who, not surprisingly, immediately congratulated him on his re-election, expressing his opposition to both the sanctions and the sending of weapons to Ukraine to defend himself from Russian aggression . Excluding the fact that Hungary, as Pope Francis pointed out yesterday, is among the countries at the forefront of welcoming Ukrainian refugees together with Poland. And in fact, to those who asked him if he did not consider his face-to-face with Orban inappropriate, Salvini replied with a “let’s not joke … if it was not appropriate I was not even the Holy Father”.
The possible common yellow-green motion
With these premises, the insistent rumors coming from the Chamber on a possible motion by some pentastellati and Northern League deputies ready to declare themselves in favor of the sale of the Donbass to Russia in exchange for an immediate ceasefire are not surprising. All while gaining momentum again, also thanks to the trip to Rome of the Guarantor Beppe Grillo, the request of the 5 Stars for a stop to the sending of weapons to Ukraine just in the days when the government is developing a new provision that should include even heavy vehicles excluded up to now.
Majority in danger?
From the M5s and the League, therefore, more than a disruptive signal of the unity of the majority with respect to the decisive theme of these hours. The international positioning – more than the superbonus or the cadastre – is the precondition for the maintenance of the government. The passage of the French ballot on Sunday will also be decisive for the future of Europe, as underlined by a very worried Enrico Letta, who in recent days had reiterated to the Washington Post «If Le Pen wins, Putin wins. If Putin wins, Europe dies ». And even yesterday, although he did not want to officially comment on the television performance of his “ally” Conte, he repeated to him: “No doubt never what the right part of the story is.”
The crux of the French elections
Among the dem, and not only, there is the conviction that a possible defeat of Macron would cause a domino effect also in the rest of the continent, and above all in Italy. Where Lega and M5s are increasingly tempted to break the large majority to profit from the opposition on a “populist” position. That opposition from which Giorgia Meloni has already outclassed Salvini and the League of him in the consensus of the Italians but which paradoxically on the international front appears much more in line with Draghi’s positioning. It is no coincidence that yesterday not only no member of the government met Orban, but that Meloni herself kept a safe distance. Once again and more and more, in short, the war in Ukraine is confirmed to be the litmus test for maintaining or breaking alliances.