Meloni to the banks: ‘South American-style measures? No, decisions based on justice’

“I’m sorry that these are being regarded as South American measures; I don’t think that they actually are. Clearly, I would have been happier to have achieved the same result through an agreement, as has been the case in previous years. Let’s try to help one another, and that is the choice the Government has made. I consider it a just decision.”

On her arrival in Dublin for the ninth summit of the European Political Community , Giorgia Meloni did not shy away from questions from reporters, starting with criticism of the budget voiced a few hours earlier during a hearing by the chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo, Carlo Messina.

The Prime Minister is choosing her words carefully, keen to avoid exacerbating an already tense atmosphere. But she defends the 5 billion contribution requested from the financial sector to fund the Budget Act. And, once again, she suggests that those who have gained the most during these difficult years are called upon to contribute. “We are all aware of the situation; we are all aware of the difficulties that this particular economic climate poses for many Italian citizens,” she explains. “At the same time, we also realise that there are sectors which have fared well in recent years, and which have done so partly thanks to the Government’s measures and the stability that Italia has guaranteed.”

The Prime Minister landed in the Irish capital after meeting with minority groups to discuss cyberattacks following the false bomb threats which, yesterday and to some extent today, forced the evacuation of thousands of schools. ‘I would like to thank the opposition parties once again for their participation,’ says Meloni, ‘because it was an absolutely frank and productive discussion, through which we also conveyed the image – which is necessary at this time – of a ruling class which, despite the many divisions that characterise it, is able to set those divisions aside when the time comes’. This does not mean, she added in response to comments from the PD secretary Elly Schlein , ‘that I am asking for a blank cheque. Clearly, the government is not asking for any blank cheque’.

The government’s approach, which will be unveiled this afternoon at the meeting of the Interministerial Committee for the Security of the Republic, is to identify specific protocols for action «for each sector» that will help distinguish between hoax threats and genuine threats. This is also why today, ‘having concluded that the threat was not a genuine one’, instructions were issued to prefects, via the Ministry of the Interior, and to headteachers, via the Ministry of Education, ‘not to evacuate or close schools’. Even though some headteachers ‘had already taken action’.