Defence, Meloni's roadmap to 3.5 per cent of GDP: the Strait Bridge is also included

That of rearmament under pressure from NATO, in turn constantly urged on by US President Donald Trump, is a path that for Italy is developing piece by piece. And it could not be otherwise. The first in Meloni's strategy was, in the aftermath of the peace signed with French President Emmanuel Macron in Rome, the government summit focusing on the issues put on the table in recent months by the Atlantic Alliance. The rapprochement between the prime minister and the French president was also dictated by the need to present a common front in Europe in the face of Trump's fears of a clear-cut disengagement from the Atlantic Alliance, part of a strategy that the American president has not concealed in recent months and that could reach the moment of truth at the summit on 24 and 25 June in The Hague.

There Meloni will announce the achievement of the 2 per cent threshold of military spending in relation to GDP, a commitment that will also be assured beforehand to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who will be a guest of the Prime Minister on 12 June. This is the goal declared by the government in recent months, achieved by including new items in the expenditure chapters, compatible with NATO parameters, which are different from those of the EU Commission, on the basis of which - as stated by Brussels in the document on recommendations to Italy, in the context of the European Semester - defence spending is forecast at 1.3% of GDP in both 2024 and 2025.

Italy and France are not among the 16 EU countries that have asked for exemptions from the Stability Pact to increase defence spending, as part of the ReArm-Readiness package. Now the convergences announced will be put to the test by the upcoming geopolitical junctures, the negotiations on Ukraine and those between the EU and the US on tariffs, with the NATO summit coming ten days after the no less delicate G7 summit in Canada.

Initially, the idea of investing five per cent of national wealth in defence was a proposal advocated by the US president, but received with some coldness within the Atlantic Alliance. If member countries have difficulty reaching the 2% threshold, was the widespread reasoning among many chancelleries, raising the bar beyond that threshold seemed an unfeasible operation, especially for those who, like Italy and France, have to deal with a particularly heavy public debt. With the passage of time, however, and with the approach of the summit in the Netherlands, the sensitivity on this issue has changed and the entire NATO has become united around the proposal to raise the bar to 5%. So much so, in fact, that the tycoon's doctrine - firmly relaunched by his Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth - has found its first outlet in the agreement on the Alliance's new capability targets at the meeting of the Atlantic Alliance defence ministers held in Brussels in the last few hours.

In fact, it will be Secretary General Mark Rutte who will put on the table before the leaders in The Hague on 24-25 June the investment plan to translate the American vision into numbers that are also European: 3.5% of GDP per year for armaments, the remaining 1.5% to be allocated to strategic investments in infrastructure, industry and security. A formula conceived to make the goal more sustainable for lagging countries like Italy, without disappointing Washington's expectation of having more autonomous allies in military terms. "We have agreed on capacity targets, valid for each country," Rutte clarified at a press conference at the end of the ministerial Alliance Defence, "and I do not want to go into the details" of the investment plan with the defence spending target set at 5% that will be presented at the Hague summit. "The allies," he emphasised, "will discuss the details, for example the date" by which the targets are to be met, "but the support of the allies" to strengthen the commitment is "strong". "The allies understand that it is necessary because we live in a different world, with greater threats," he concluded.