The parallel convergences of Meloni and Salvini
What Meloni and Salvini say and how the government alliance is progressing. Paola Sacchi's note
He defines them as "precious", but also invites them to be "responsible" and not to be "selfish", in this he also addresses his own. But Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in her capacity as president of Fdi at the first national assembly of the major centre-right party, addresses the request for responsibility to the allies. Starting from the "few resources that exist" for the Budget law. "Precious" allies, underlining the diplomatic side towards them because naturally without Matteo Salvini's League and Antonio Tajani's Forza Italia, both deputy prime ministers, respectively minister of Infrastructure and Transport and minister of Foreign Affairs, there would not be enough numbers to govern. But, immediately afterwards, comes the exhortation to be "responsible" and not "selfish" because "we have the weight of the Nation on our shoulders". Meloni closes his speech with the words of Lucio Battisti's famous song "It will not be an adventure", but not excluding that the great result achieved in Italy a year ago with the victory of the centre-right or more precisely right-centre could also be achieved in Europe .
A statement which, however, does not unravel the crux of his position on alliances. That is, whether he agrees with Salvini's proposal to extend them to Marine Le Pen and the German right-wing AfD or whether he excludes him like Tajani and with him the EPP of which the Italian leader is deputy to President Manfred Weber, who in recent days has not he had also ruled out a new alliance with the PSE.
Meloni, as expected and as FdI had already announced, has not yet taken an official position. But in the book-interview by Alessandro Sallusti, director of the newspaper Il Giornale , “La versione di Giorgia” (Rizzoli) talks about his objective of achieving the victory of the centre-right also in Europe, with a “bipolarisation” of the scheme, so that they are certain majorities that are no longer mixed and fragmented which then risk, in his opinion, strengthening the role of bureaucracies. But, in the meantime, the fact remains that Salvini, with the presence of Marine Le Pen at the Pontida party, has put himself back at the center of the debate. And Meloni with his Conservatives of which he is president in Europe would risk an additional role in an alliance with the EPP, PSE and Macron's Liberals.
It is the crossroads of “Giorgia”. It is no coincidence that, as Adalberto Signore anticipated for Il Giornale , a visit from Meloni to Victor Orban is expected, who with his parliamentarians could increase the ranks of the Conservatives. But Orban is no longer in the EPP and this move by the prime minister may not be looked upon favorably by his other government partner Tajani.
Salvini, who yesterday was involved in the congress of the League of Rome, after making his surprise move sends a diplomatic message to Meloni: "Giorgia is becoming a friend, there is a personal relationship and this despite the newspapers that we open the morning".
Salvini, yesterday involved in the congress of the League of Rome, with the election of Davide Bordoni as secretary, is preparing for Pontida with his "historic friend" Le Pen, the leader of the first French party, according to the polls, who "is not against anyone”, therefore not against Europe “as it has been described”. 200 buses from all over Italy are expected. It will be the start of the European election campaign. Which will inevitably see FdI, Lega and FI running separately for the proportional system. Therefore, "responsible" and with "fair play" yes in the name of the national government, which everyone really wants to last for the full 5 years, but it is physiological that the allies do not intend to be further downsized to the advantage of FdI and indeed they strongly want to return at least double digits.
Furthermore, there is also a large space for abstention to be conquered without the three parties exclusively competing for consensus among themselves. This is to the advantage of the compactness of the entire coalition and therefore also of the main party representing the prime minister. And it is a fact that the centre-right or right-centre was and remains a three-pronged coalition. Without formally having a single leadership role held by Silvio Berlusconi who was the founder of the centre-right. A special memory will be dedicated to Berlusconi and Roberto Maroni in Pontida, an edition entitled In defense of freedom .
On immigration, Meloni also reiterates the need to give a structural response with "The Mattei plan" and "not with ephemeral initiatives". Which observers certainly mistakenly saw as a dig at Salvini. And, in any case, in view of the European elections, this is a physiological dialectic within the majority for which no alternatives can be glimpsed by a left divided internally, which appears devoid of real proposals. If not that of the attack regardless. The secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein accuses the Meloni government of having done nothing. The prime minister resolutely counters that such a left shows that it "does not love Italy".
Meloni also removes a pebble from his shoe and counterattacks: "It's also a leftist who threw gratuitous mud at me, my sister Arianna and my family for a year." Arianna Meloni, a party militant for 17 years, with solid political experience that has always taken place in the shadows, is now responsible for the political and membership secretariat of Fdi. Yesterday at the national assembly was his public debut with this role.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/le-convergenze-parallele-di-meloni-e-salvini/ on Wed, 13 Sep 2023 06:24:55 +0000.