Meloni: to the EU Council for solutions on energy, Ukraine and immigration

Solutions against expensive energy, all-out defense of Ukraine (because "it is equivalent to defending our freedom"), negotiations on the new EU budget, greater graduality in the reimbursements of the Next Generation Eu, no to illegal immigration that turns into regular.

What Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni illustrated this morning to the Senate in view of the European Council on 15 and 16 October is a wide-ranging intervention.

The starting point can only be current events with the increases in the prices of energy products which are putting Italian businesses and families in difficulty. A first strong point of the Prime Minister's speech was when she defined the diesel agreement announced by US President Trump with Putin's Russia to control diesel prices as a "very risky choice". "We all understand and share - explained the Premier - the need to contain energy prices which weigh on families and businesses, even in Italy. But we must be aware that the surge in fuel prices is mainly due to the war in Iran, not the conflict in Ukraine. Therefore, the result of this choice is doubtful, while the risks are clear." Such a choice would be equivalent to «Legitimation for Moscow – he continued – while its bombs continue to fall on Ukrainian cities, new revenues with which to finance the war, an implicit weakening of the sanctioning lever: these are elements that we cannot ignore, and which contradict what has been done so far by Western states, including the United States, to push Putin to sit at the negotiating table».

On the high energy front, according to the Prime Minister, Europe must focus first and foremost on what is within its power, starting with avoiding penalizing businesses and families already struggling with high energy costs with new obligations and taxes such as the ETS. «Alongside the international response – he explained – we also need the courage to look at what we, in Europe, can do. Starting from the most obvious thing: preventing rules designed in a context completely different from the one we live in today from ending up aggravating the effects of the crises we are experiencing. Because our businesses today face increasingly aggressive global competition, and every additional cost that Europe imposes on itself is an advantage that it gives to its competitors. And the time to correct course is not infinite. This is what Italy has concentrated its work on."

In the meantime, however, some progress has been made as with the new margins of maneuver authorized by Brussels with the safeguard clause. «Safety and energy are two sides of the same coin – added Meloni -. Without security, energy costs more. And without energy, there may be nothing left to defend. This is why we asked, and obtained, that the national escape clause could be used not only for defense spending, but also for the measures necessary to address the energy crisis. The result is that, out of the maximum margin of 1.5% of GDP envisaged by the clause, Italy has decided to use 1.2%, divided equally: 0.6% for measures against high energy prices, around 14 billion euros for vulnerable families and energy-intensive businesses, and another 0.6% for defense and security. That is, we chose, given the context, not to use all the margin foreseen for the defense."