How and why Meloni and Letta argue over European ties with SPD and Vox
Themes and controversies at the center of the last bars of the election campaign. Paola Sacchi's note
On Europe in particular, the clash between Enrico Letta and Giorgia Meloni worsens. But it is not enough to completely polarize an electoral campaign conducted on several fronts and with other protagonists in the field. It is a "bad election campaign", which for Silvio Berlusconi was based "on the discredit of the political opponent". And Matteo Salvini accuses the left of "insults and lies", such as those about the " Russian shadows " against him.
The common thread of the clashes in the final sprint of the electoral campaign is Europe and foreign policy, with the basic alarm from the left about the alleged "unreliability" of the "Right". We are now in the final stages and Meloni is repositioning itself on a front that is more of a struggle than of government after appearing more cautious on the emergency of the expensive bills for which Salvini does not give up the pressure in favor of the budget gap and the autonomy for which the Lega relaunched in Pontida.
Even yesterday, the Northern League leader warned that in a center-right government autonomy will come before presidentialism: "We already have autonomy in the Constitution, for presidentialism it takes a few years".
Meanwhile, the president of FdI is the protagonist of the clash with Letta. He accuses him of having "traded the endorsement to the Democratic Party of the SPD, which accused it of" neo-fascism ", with the national interest". Meloni accuses Letta of "immobility" with respect to the price cap hindered by the Germans and the Dutch. The president of FdI accuses the dem leader of "discrediting the image of Italy with respect to foreign investors" and hopes that "the victory of FdI and the center-right will lead the way in Spain in a few months" also with "the affirmation of Vox ”, the post-Franco right-wing movement.
Due to her relations with Vox, Meloni had already been at the center of other controversies of the Democratic Party, which now attacks her again with Letta, saying that it is "shocked" by Meloni's "autarchic and provincial" positions.
But here a distinction opens up due to an entirely internal battle in the center-left between Letta and Matteo Renzi, the “third pole”. According to Renzi, Meloni should not be attacked on "neo-fascism" but on the government of the future for which he and Carlo Calenda want Mario Draghi to lead. Read, today evidently to remain him, even in the event of defeat, the head of the center-left pole, in an interview with Il Giornale by Augusto Minzolini, seems to change a bit when he says: "Govern who wins, even if it is Meloni ".
But, in the meantime, Salvini keeps the point in the internal competition, established by the same rules, of the center-right. Like Meloni, he too reassures that the government will last 5 years, but he does not give up the challenge for the premiership and, in a meeting with Lombard executives and administrators in Milan, he raises the issue of Autonomy, "also because we owe it to Umberto Bossi of whom yesterday (more yesterday, ed ) was his birthday and for this battle he also risked jail ”.
Salvini, who then goes to Turin to the Mirafiori district, thanks Giancarlo Giorgetti for being present, as well as to Pontida, despite the severe back pain that hit him, and says: "For those who have not yet understood this, this is the League , just one, not three or four as the left-wing newspapers have written ”. Attacks by Salvini on Rai broadcasts "where public money makes propaganda to the left" and thus relaunching the elimination of the fee in the bill. But the leader of the League also has some for Draghi, in the meantime in the US for the award conferred on him by Kissinger as statesman of the year, for the accusations made against him about the "Russian shadows": "If the premier knows about entrepreneurs or journalists involved make the names ".
Salvini reiterates that he has "really changed the judgment on Putin after the war", but on Draghi he differs from Berlusconi who had not yet ruled out a role for the former ECB president. The Northern League leader is very clear: "I see no role for Draghi in the government, whoever votes for the League votes for the League, whoever votes for the center-right votes for the center-right".
The Cav, in turn, however, clears the field of any misunderstanding: “Not a center-right government but broad agreements? It is such an absurd hypothesis that I refuse even to comment on it ”. However, he adds that "Forza Italia will be the guarantor of Europeanism and Atlanticism of the center-right government". And warns of the strong risk of abstention.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/meloni-letta-europa/ on Wed, 21 Sep 2022 05:11:19 +0000.