Meloni insists: Stability Pact needs to be loosened on energy. 'I am not alone'

Giorgia Meloni is back on the charge on the loosening of the constraints of the European Stability Pact to deal with the energy shock caused by the war in Iran, despite the new alt of the EU commissioner for the economy, Valdis Dombrovskis. From Cyprus, in a break on the second day of the informal European Council in Nicosia, after yesterday's working dinner in Agia Napa, the premier made it clear: "I am not the only one asking for these measures, the awareness that this is a serious issue is widespread. I am confident that a synthesis can be found'.

"We need the courage to prevent a crisis and not to respond when it manifests itself in all its intensity, and it seems to me that I am not alone in the Council," Meloni makes it clear, recalling - with reference to the state aid on which the Commission has already opened up - that we need to understand which sectors we are referring to (Italia has already pointed out the emergency of road haulage, a harbinger of an increase in inflation) and that fiscal capacity is not the same in all member states. 'Everything we need,' he concludes, 'except to create more disparities.

If the Spaniard Pedro Sanchez expressed the same wish as Meloni to overcome the rigidity of the European budget rules, there remains the coldness of the German chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had a bilateral meeting with the premier in the night. Germany's position 'is known,' Meloni explained, 'but even the Germans realise how difficult the situation is. There is definitely a willingness to meet each other, that is, to find solutions that will suit everyone. I have not found closure. Everyone understands that if a problem impacts on some European economies it also impacts on others, because we are interconnected'.

The Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034 was also discussed at the summit. The goal, which is not a foregone conclusion, is to arrive at a negotiating draft with figures at the European Council in June and an agreement in December. But the positions are still very far apart, as Meloni confirms. 'The negotiation is very difficult,' she scolds. "Cohesion and the Common Agricultural Policy are pressing Italia. And it is true that we are looking for new resources for new priorities, but I think a signal should also be given on administrative expenditure: this is not the time to allocate 800 million to the renovation of the Council building. This is something that Italia is not able to sustain, which would be a wrong signal to the citizens'.

Reiterating that she has not heard from Trump, nor that he is attempting to patch things up after the tycoon's attacks, Meloni comments 'not positively' on the indiscretion on the Pentagon email about the hypothesis of excluding Spain from Nato: 'I think Nato must remain united, that it is an element of strength that we have in the context and that we must work to strengthen it, together with the European column of Nato so that it is complementary to the American one'. Nor does he shy away from a question about the possible participation at the G20 at the end of the year in Florida of Vladimir Putin, whom Trump is reportedly planning to invite. And his is a 'no': 'We are the ones asking Putin to take a few steps forward, we are not the ones who have to take them'.