Meloni prepares to leave for G7 with Salvini's plug: 'The risk is not Putin but migrants'

At last week's summit at Palazzo Chigi with Giorgia Meloni and Antonio Tajani, Matteo Salvini had also agreed that on foreign policy it would be wise to avoid utterances. The League leader's resistance, however, was short-lived. From the stage of the Victory Festival of the EU Patriots led by Viktor Orban and Marine Le Pen, Salvini first returned to the charge against possible new sanctions against Moscow ("they take peace away"); then he argued that for Europe "the danger is illegal immigrants, mostly Islamic, not improbable Russian tanks"; finally he concluded with a "No to a European debt to buy weapons, as Macron says".

Three stances that contrast with Giorgia Meloni's (and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani's) line. The premier has not been in time to exult over the opposition's defeat on the referendum, which once again finds herself having to reckon with the counter-song of her ally and vice-premier. Deadly timing on Salvini's part. His lunge comes just days before Meloni's departure for Canada where the G7 will be held on Sunday 15 June. Ukraine and sanctions on Moscow will once again be among the central issues on which the premier will discuss on Thursday 12 at Palazzo Chigi with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte ahead of the 24 June summit in The Hague.

There, as everyone knows - including Salvini - the new defence spending target will be made official, which (it goes without saying) starts at at least 3.5 per cent of GDP. For Italy this means more than 30 billion more than at present. A request that must be remembered comes first and foremost from Donald Trump, whose loyal supporter the League secretary prides himself on being. Indeed, for the US president, the 'scrounging' Europeans should reach 5%. The government's (and not only Macron's) objective is to prevent the cost from falling on the shoulders of national budgets, inevitably leading to an increase in debt that is very dangerous in perspective. But above all, sharing the costs would avoid opening up the abyss between those who can afford it - Germany - and those who instead, like Italy, cannot. Salvini avoids going into details. But his lunge at the Patriots' Party suggests that the armistice in the government has already been broken. The Captain goes his own way. That this does not coincide with that dictated by Palazzo Chigi matters little for the moment. His is a message for the home audience and the Patriots' stage offers him the ideal setting to play his favourite role: the government anti-European, the minister who plays the opponent.