Meloni snubs and saws the Quirinale Treaty with France

29 December 20221 year ago babelfish

During the press conference at the end of the year, Meloni said that the Quirinale treaty with France is not operational and that its contours "are not yet very clear". Here are previous statements and positions (also from Minister Urso)

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said today that the so-called "Quirinale treaty", i.e. the enhanced cooperation agreement between Italy and France signed in Rome on 26 November 2021, is not "fully operational yet" and that she has not consulted in this regard with the French president Emmanuel Macron.

WHAT MELONI SAID ABOUT THE QUIRINALE TREATY

During the press conference at the end of the year, Meloni declared that “the contours of the treaty are not yet very clear to me, because I haven't had the opportunity to go into it as much as I would have liked. It seems to me that it is not yet fully operational, in any case it is not at the moment, in the sense that Macron and I in recent weeks, despite having talked about a thousand things, have not consulted on the matters that were the subject".

"I reserve the right to evaluate whether the treaty is operational or not", added the president, "and on the basis of this I will decide how to proceed".

THE PAST POSITIONS

Before becoming prime minister, the position of Giorgia Meloni and her party, the Brothers of Italy, towards the Quirinale treaty was one of substantial closure and skepticism.

Meloni, in particular, had emphasized the fact that Parliament had not been involved in the negotiations – which began in 2018, when the head of government was Paolo Gentiloni – between the Italian and French administrations.

– Read also: All the differences in the center-right on the Italy-France treaty

"I contested the Quirinale treaty", Meloni recalled today at the press conference, "because Parliament had not been involved in this matter in the slightest".

THE CRITICISM OF COPASIR (WHEN URSO WAS THERE)

In its report last February, the COPASIR (Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic) had underlined some critical aspects of the Quirinale treaty, writing for example that the agreement should provide for "adequate protection of strategic assets in the Italian financial and industrial fields" .

In fact, the Committee highlighted the risks for national security represented by the French economic penetration in Italy, for example in the automotive (Stellantis), telecommunications (Tim-Vivendi) and banking (Crédit Agricole) sectors.

At the time, COPASIR was chaired by Adolfo Urso, a member of the Brothers of Italy and currently Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy.

In the report, COPASIR even compared the Quirinale treaty to the memorandum on the Belt and Road Initiative, the political agreement signed with China by Giuseppe Conte's government in 2019. In the latter case, it read, "the government intended to involve the parliamentary body in a confrontation on the issues of national security involved, a similar preventive involvement did not occur in the case of the treaty with France”.

Unlike Beijing, however, France is a member together with Italy of the European Union and NATO. Furthermore, the European Union considers China an economic competitor and a systemic rival.

WHAT IS THE QUIRINALE TREATY?

The Treaty of the Quirinale – or, formally, the Treaty between the Italian Republic and the French Republic for enhanced bilateral cooperation – is made up of twelve articles, and is more a list of intentions than a collection of well-defined projects.

It aims to enhance cooperation between Rome and Paris in areas such as foreign and European policy, defence, migration and border management, industry and space.

STARTMAG IN-DEPTH INSPECTION

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/meloni-trattato-quirinale-francia/ on Thu, 29 Dec 2022 14:17:38 +0000.