What the daggers between Salvini and Tajani hide
The clash over EU alliances between the two deputy prime ministers, Salvini and Tajani, of the Meloni government analyzed by Paola Sacchi
The clash over EU alliances between the two deputy prime ministers of the Meloni government is evident. The electoral campaign for the European elections in June 2024 probably started too early and paradoxically risked immediately giving the external, reductive and somewhat misleading image of a competition entirely within the governing coalition. More than against political opponents, divided and in serious crisis. Is this also an effect of the fraying on the left and in the centre-left?
In any case, beyond the differences on EU alliances, the common goal of the governing coalition is to create a new centre-right majority in Brussels against the left. But it is not the dry question and answer between Matteo Salvini, as leader of the League, and Antonio Tajani, coordinator and president in pectore of Forza Italia, as well as vice president of the EPP, that puts the government in crisis. And the divided and crisis-ridden oppositions seem unable to even take advantage of the differences between the two deputy prime ministers.
Salvini, on the one hand, relaunches the League, which risked being overshadowed by a pact between the EPP and the European Conservatives, of which Giorgia Meloni herself is president, and with two moves, an interview with "Corriere della sera" and a videoconference with Marine Le Pen, confirms that he will remain in the Identity and Democracy group, relaunches the unity of the entire European centre-right, including Le Pen and the German AfD, who are with the League in ID. Salvini challenges, without naming FI, not to to prefer Macron's liberals, whose government sent broadsides against Italy, to those like Le Pen "who have never attacked our country". And the leader of the League invites all the center-right to sign an anti-left pact, "Never with the socialists". In short, never again an "Ursula" majority that sees Ppe and Pse together. A pact or a common list for the Europeans? We don't know.
To Salvini, who will then meet Le Pen in the afternoon but only by videoconference, due to the serious French situation, Tajani replies already in the morning with a dry no to alliances with "anti-Europeanist" forces such as Le Pen and Afd. The Northern League leader counter-replied in the evening: "I do not accept vetoes on my allies", Europeans. And the president in pectore of FI reiterates his position, emphasizing that "FI is the EPP in Italy", but that with "Salvini there are no problems in making agreements in Italy and outside Italy. The problem is not and never has been Salvini and the League ”. Therefore, Tajani remains firm on the alliance between "the Populars, Conservatives and Liberals, the same against the left, which elected me president of the European Parliament". But no problem for the national government. And perhaps a further invitation to Salvini to enter or approach the Ppe?
One thing seems certain: no to a common list for the Europeans, assuming that this option has ever been in the field that Salvini did not talk about and only appeared in the background. In any case, it is a fact that Tajani reiterates: "We take the field with the list of Forza Italia which is the Ppe". Meloni with yesterday's "Corriere della Sera" does not go beyond a diplomat: "The negotiations have not yet started". While noting that the current majority between Populars and Socialists "is unnatural". And if more than to Tajani, Salvini actually wanted to send a signal mainly to Meloni herself against the possibility that in the end even the Conservatives with the Popolari would say yes to a new "Ursula" majority, with the confirmation of von herself der Leyen to head the presidency of the EU Commission, since it is not easy to build a new center-right majority without Le Pen and Afd?
Certainly, the Europeans, where we will go with the proportional system, will also be a way for the forces in the national government to count themselves. And it is physiological for everyone to assert their identity. The League, with FdI chaired by the premier who as such for the European balance must be more of a "center" to assert national interests, will try to fill that space of "struggle" in the center-right which sees more openness on the right side. FI, in its most important electoral debut without Silvio Berlusconi, will try to play the game on a wide range, with the ambition of attracting, as the "centre" of the centre-right, also the consents of reformist voters fleeing the radicalization of Elly's Pd Schlein. And FdI will want to play the lion's share, on the Italian scheme, making the Conservatives become the needle in the balance of the new European balances.
In all of this, however, it would be a bit paradoxical if the balances or rebalances within the centre-right take place only with a transfer of consensus from one to the other of the three parties, or worse with a sort of "cannibalisation", without breaking through in the ranks of the consensus of the opponents. This would not be a good omen for the continuation of the center-right or right-center government. Which at the moment sees no alternative.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/che-cosa-celano-le-stilettate-fra-salvini-e-tajani/ on Tue, 04 Jul 2023 05:19:18 +0000.