Meloni assures that Italy must not give in to Putin's "blackmail"

The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, opened this Tuesday before Parliament with a studied investiture speech in which she assured that Italy will not take a step away from the positions of NATO and the EU vis-à-vis Russia, and promising that Italy is not going to give in to the “blackmail” of Vladimir Putin.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
25 October 2022 Tuesday 06:30
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Meloni assures that Italy must not give in to Putin's "blackmail"

The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, opened this Tuesday before Parliament with a studied investiture speech in which she assured that Italy will not take a step away from the positions of NATO and the EU vis-à-vis Russia, and promising that Italy is not going to give in to the “blackmail” of Vladimir Putin.

In a harsh tone, Meloni confirmed that Italy is "fully part of the EU and the Western world", despite the recent uncomfortable statements by his partner Silvio Berlusconi claiming to have resumed friendship with the Russian president. "Giving in to Putin's blackmail on energy would not solve the problem, it would aggravate it, opening the way to new claims and blackmail of future increases in energy prices greater than those we have seen in recent months", he indicated, to the applause of its representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, who this afternoon will support it in a vote that is a simple procedure before the great majority enjoyed by the right in the Italian Parliament.

It was the most important speech of his life, and that is why he has prepared it thoroughly, locking himself up all day yesterday to write it together with one of his closest collaborators, Giovanbattista Fazzolari, who could soon become deputy minister. The speech has had all kinds of moments, some more moderate and others more electioneering, citing everything from Pope Francis to Montesquieu and Steve Jobs. In addition to a declaration of intent about what he intends to do over the next five years, it was also a litmus test before Europe, after he made an effort to appear moderate during the electoral campaign. For this reason, Meloni has wanted to reassure the world about the first far-right government in Italy, promising that they will not attack abortion or civil rights and clearly condemning fascism.

“I have never felt sympathy for anti-democratic regimes, including the fascist one,” said Meloni, who got his start in politics with the youth of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party founded by supporters of Benito Mussolini in 1946. “The laws Racial laws – approved against the Jews by the Mussolini regime in 1938 – are the lowest point in Italian history”, he added, indicating that they will fight “against any form of racism, anti-Semitism, political violence, discrimination”.

During the speech, which lasted more than an hour and was interrupted several times by applause, Meloni also had words for the EU, acknowledging that he knows that in Brussels they are "curious" about the attitude that the new Executive will have towards the community institutions. He has explained that his thinking is not "heresy" but "pragmatism", and that they do not intend to "sabotage the EU" but to make it more "effective", while respecting community rules on budgetary matters.

"Italy will make its voice heard in Europe as befits a great founding nation," he added. The EU is not an elite circle with members from Series A and Series B, or a Board of Directors that must keep the accounts in order, but a common house to face challenges that the member states can hardly face alone. The EU has often been unprepared for this”.

Regarding the curb on immigration, one of the workhorses of the Brothers of Italy, Meloni explained that he will ask the EU to recover the proposal for the naval operation Sophia to block departures from North Africa, in addition to creating managed by international organizations to distinguish "who has the right to be accepted in Europe from those who do not have that right". "This government wants to follow a path that has been little traveled to date: curb illegal departures, finally break the trafficking of human beings in the Mediterranean", he exclaimed under the watchful eye of Matteo Salvini, who from his new position as Minister of Infrastructure is going to continue trying to close the ports to migrants.

Meloni is the first woman to reach the position of prime minister in Italy, and although she opposes quotas and feminism - she has preferred to be called "the prime minister" - she did want to underline the great "responsibility" that this fact entails and remember all those women who "have built the ladder" that has allowed her to "break the glass ceiling", also the communist Nilde Iotti, the first president of the Chamber of Deputies, or the astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, the first European woman commander of the space station.