Nato summit, military spending and flexibility, with a view to tariffs: why Meloni is betting on a 'special relationship' with Trump

Giorgia Meloni continues to bet her chips on the 'very special relationship' with Donald Trump. She does so by espousing without criticism the agreement that will be signed this morning in The Hague at the summit of the heads of state and government of the 32 NATO countries, explaining to her own that the increase to 5% of GDP of defence and security spending is necessary and 'fair', as also supported by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, and that the main Italian requests have been accepted: the spread over ten years, the distinction between 3.5 per cent for defence in the strict sense and 1.5 per cent for security (in a more than broad sense), the absence of annual increase obligations and the revision of commitments to 2029. But it does so above all by looking beyond: to the tariffs game, which must be closed by 9 July, and to the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference scheduled to take place in Rome on 10-11 July.

At dinner at the table of honour with the King of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander, seated next to Trump, Meloni once again plastically showed her closeness to the US president, who yesterday had flaunted via social media the message with which Nato secretary general Mark Rutte crowned him the winner. A victory that Italy acknowledges to him: he had asked for the allies' commitment to be increased to 5% and he got it. Tajani explained in a press point convened in the morning on the sidelines of the summit: "It is a fair request that the Americans made in order to have a more balanced NATO, but it is nothing new: it had already been made in the previous administration. For years the Americans had been asking Europe to invest more in security, and now Rutte wanted to come to the conclusion'.

The key word for Italy is now 'flexibility'. There is the one that the government claims to have obtained with the agreement approved at NATO and there is the one immediately invoked by the European Union, to "make the rules of the stability pact compatible with the increase in defence spending" and to avoid "risks of asymmetrical applications". The first also concerns the breadth of the cap: among the expenses admitted to the 5% calculation, and in particular the security quota that must rise to 1.5% (see Il Sole 24 Ore on newsstands), the government intends to include items of all kinds. From infrastructure such as the bridge over the Strait of Messina to civil protection, from controls in the Mediterranean by the coast guard against human trafficking to the protection of submarine cables, from anti-terrorism to the prevention of cyber attacks. In theory, even the costs of the controversial Operation Albania could be included in the count.

But to reach the target in 2035, as documented in recent days on Sole24Ore.com citing the estimates of the Milex Military Observatory, expenditure will have to increase from the current 35 billion for defence and 10 for security (2% of Italy's declared GDP) to 100 billion and 45 billion respectively. Average annual increases of 9-10 billion that, for a country with narrow fiscal spaces like ours, and moreover in infringement proceedings for excessive deficit, would mean the need to find new resources. Activating the national safeguard clause for defence spending, as Friedrich Merz's Germany has already done, is impossible for us, and limiting ourselves to increasing spending would forever prevent us from exiting the procedure (the Upb has estimated this: the debt would only start falling in relation to GDP in 2041 and the deficit would remain above 3% until 2029). With the consequences on the markets feared by Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti. Tajani, asked on the point, replied: "Flexibility is important because if you want to achieve the goals you have to look at priorities, not just at compliance with rigid rules. This does not mean laxity, but it does mean, given the current situation, that in some cases we need to be more flexible'. This applies to Italy, but also to Spain and other southern countries.

For the Italian executive, the truce between Israel and Iran after the US bombs on Iranian nuclear sites was providential. It would have been difficult to maintain almost unconditional support for Trump if the US had remained an active participant in the conflict. It is different to be able to dismiss the stars and stripes as an attack-monster. 'Let us hope that the twelve-day war is over,' Tajani was able to comment, proposing Rome as the city for the resumption of the negotiating table. The US president's very harsh phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also removed Meloni from embarrassment: it gave her the opportunity to renew to Trump both her support for the relaunch of negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue and her request for a ceasefire in Gaza, from which the Farnesina titular announced the departure, towards Italy, of 11 people, including two doctors expected at the Gemelli and at the University for Foreigners in Siena.