Meloni: ‘I thought it would be easier with Trump.’ And she replies to Schlein: ‘She’s confusing Schengen with the EU Treaty’

“We’ll see.” That was her response to the question of whether she and Donald Trump would resume talks after the summer break. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered no definitive answers in her interview with the New York Times.

The direct line of communication between Rome and Washington, which for months had been underpinned by the ideological affinity between the two leaders on immigration and their criticism of ‘woke’ culture, as she pointed out, has been severed. Meloni admits this in no uncertain terms: ‘It’s clear that I thought it would have been easier’ with Donald Trump, but ‘things turned out differently’. She points out that there has been no contact with the US president ‘for several weeks’.

The Prime Minister, however, rejects the idea that personal relationships could influence the Government’s decisions: ‘I continue to believe that Western unity is fundamental. I do not determine Italy’s strategy on the basis of my personal relationships,’ she tells the newspaper. She goes on to assert Italy’s autonomy on the international stage: ‘I do not like the idea of a submissive Italia, an Italia that considers itself inferior to others.’

Then there is the issue of migrants. This time, Meloni is addressing it via social media. First and foremost, by responding to Elly Schlein: ‘She talks about a “boomerang” and an alleged failure by the Government to manage migrants. But before engaging in propaganda, it would be useful to understand the difference between the issues in question. Schengen and the Pact on Migration and Asylum are two completely different things and have nothing to do with one another. And it is precisely the new Pact that marks a positive turning point for Italia in the management of so-called ‘Dublin’ migrants. The new rules offer much greater protection to countries of first entry when it comes to asylum claims and, with the strengthening of the ‘safe third country’ principle championed by Italia, it will be easier to carry out accelerated returns.”

‘As regards the situation prior to these changes, this Government has opposed the application of rules that were unreasonably punitive towards us; indeed, from 2023 to the present day, Italia has rejected around 80,000 requests for the transfer of asylum seekers from other Member States. And it is thanks to this Government’s firm stance that Italia has not merely passively accepted everything the other Member States have asked of us. What would a left-wing government have done? It would probably have acceded to those requests, further exacerbating the pressure on our reception system and creating even more problems in managing migration flows.”