The former Defence Minister Mario Mauro and Italian soul of the EPP: ‘The paradox will be that the premier will try to establish this interlocution with Macron: this on the level of political intuition. If he succeeds, he will do what Fini failed to do…”.
While news of Liz Truss’s resignation rages on in European affairs, today’s EPP summit has put a few sticking points in the great European embarrassment following Silvio Berlusconi’s words. According to rumours, even at microphones turned off, Berlusconi’s statements could paradoxically strengthen Giorgia Meloni vis-à-vis the EPP.
FdI & Ppe
The reasoning is to be traced back to the preventive work carried out in the last few months by Raffaele Fitto, in order to build not only a simple but unavoidable good relationship with Weber to accredit Meloni, but above all a line of intentions and policies. Therefore, while until yesterday it was Forza Italia that had defined itself as the guarantor of the Europeanism of Atlanticism as a government partner, now the possible scheme that is being considered in Brussels is that the Ppe could be reassured by Meloni’s positioning with the hope that the premier in pectore could support Antonio Tajani as foreign minister.
On the other hand, in today’s meeting the vulgate that Berlusconi remains Atlanticist and pro-European, and that those phrases were dictated by the excitement of the moment, did not go through: this time it just did not work, says to Formiche.net those who were present at that summit. It seems that for Weber the Berlusconi chapter is almost completely closed.
Double paradox
‘I have a rather simple reading of what is happening,’ Mario Mauro, former Defence Minister and very attentive observer of the EPP, tells Formiche.net, ‘and that is that the Draghi government was a government that in the Italian political debate, already compromised by the vicissitudes of the 18th legislature, had isolated two issues on which Italy’s credibility was at stake. These two issues are the Atlantic and Europeanism. And Draghi has immortalised in an image the winning version of this interpretation, namely when Italy, with its Prime Minister, makes itself a leader by taking Macron and Scholz on a train to Kiev: now the challenge for the Meloni government is to stay at this level’.
But what is the paradox? It is twofold, he adds. ‘Because Meloni is on the one hand the only one who has been in opposition to Draghi, but on the other hand she has probably been among the Italian political parties, the only one who has always been loyal to Draghi. So, let’s say, there is no guarantor of the Meloni government who is not Meloni herself and this makes her in a new way, which is not the traditional one, fit to take up the challenges of Atlanticism and Europeanism. The former, in fact, she faced before she even became Prime Minister and was indirectly provoked by Berlusconi’s statements,’ she stresses. ‘Now she is called upon to face it immediately, considering the conditions of relations between France and Germany at this moment at an all-time low. And Meloni, paradoxically, is called upon to play a pro-European role, that is, to foster greater European integration on a political level, that is, on the level of political decisions’.
New fact
This is, in practice, a new fact for Europe, which is that on the level of the doctrine of political correctness she will remain cumbersome and politically exposed to the doubts of the European Parliament, while on the level of the relationship between nations Meloni at this moment has the greatest credibility that an Italian political leader could have had in recent years. “Because in the meantime the leaders of Meloni’s political family are in crucial positions both positively and negatively: Poland, Hungary and what can happen in Spain if Vox becomes necessary for the formation of the government.”
Meloni and the legacy
Moreover, Mauro adds, she has had a passing of the baton in which Draghi leaves her a significant legacy. So she has an advantage to spend and it will obviously depend a lot on her if she finds a valid interlocutor in the European context. “I want to conclude with another paradox. In my opinion, the paradox will be that she will try to establish this interlocution with Emmanuel Macron, i.e. with the one who is hypothetically the furthest away from her: this on the level of political intuition. Then that the Sherpas will be found, that there are men capable of piloting these things, I have no doubt. The problem, however, is political intuition. If she does this, Meloni succeeds in doing what Fini failed to do: to legitimise the Italian right independently without recourse to mediation, which at the time was Berlusconi’s and which, today, Berlusconi continues to say he wants to take over, but which he no longer has the characteristics to do,’ Mauro concludes.
Article by Mario Mauro – taken from Formiche.net (20/10/2022)
