Almost better journalists than newspapers at Meloni’s press conference
The press conference of the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, seen by Francesco Damato
Let me write, for once with relief, that the journalists participating in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's press conference at the beginning of the year redeemed the image of newspapers with the priorities given by their interventions to, let's call them, current issues.
Only with the fifteenth of the 45 questions reserved through the draw was the problem of the Piedmontese right-wing MP Emanuele Pozzolo posed to the Prime Minister. Which has been on all the front pages of newspapers for days for the gun with which he took part in a party promoted by the sister of the undersecretary of Justice Andrea Delmastro. Gun from which a shot was fired which injured, fortunately not seriously, the son-in-law of an agent of Delmastro's escort.
WHAT MELONI TALKED ABOUT AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE
Before this problem, after an hour and a half of press conference, Meloni had to talk about her possible candidacy in the European elections, about the continued use of cuts in public spending to keep the accounts in balance, about Italy's competitiveness in terms of of foreign investments, of the new European stability pact, of the failure to ratify the ESM treaty, or state bailout fund, of a possible direct televised confrontation with the secretary of the Democratic Party, of the compatibility of a judge of the Court of Auditors with his functions after having hoped for the provisional exercise rather than the State budget approved by the Chambers, of migrants, of the competition requested by the European Union and disregarded with the rules on street vendors and beach resorts, of the taxation of banking extra profits, of anti-Semitism, of privatizations and constitutional reform for the direct election of the Prime Minister.
THE POZZOLO AFFAIR, THE VERDINI AFFAIR
Relieved – I think – by the seriousness of this long list of priorities, Meloni did not hesitate to deplore her "gunslinger" party colleague. And to announce the suspension requested by the political formation of the "brothers of Italy" pending the proceedings she herself requested from the board of arbitrators. And of course also the judicial investigations that the unwary deputy has brought about.
With the sixteenth question, the other issue that has been on the front pages of the newspapers for a few days now has come to Meloni's attention: the Verdini-Anas affair, which is being dealt with by the Rome Prosecutor's Office. And Meloni responded by denying that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini is required to report to the Chambers about his relations with the Verdini family, whose daughter he is notoriously the boyfriend of. The affairs that the judiciary deals with date back to years in which Salvini was not the competent minister of Anas. And Verdini's son, Tommaso, who ended up under house arrest like his father, had as his only party card – Meloni recalled – that of the Democratic Party. Which does not mean he deserves to be called into question as the opposition claims against Salvini.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/giornalisti-conferenza-stampa-meloni/ on Thu, 04 Jan 2024 13:39:20 +0000.