Conversation with the head of the FI delegation at the European Parliament: “Our objective is to have a popular person at the head of the Commission, thanks to the contribution of Forza Italia. Emmanuel Macron? At the end of the cycle. Italy, champion of European stability, also thanks to Antonio Tajani”
04/05/2024
The farewell to petrol and diesel cars was an ideological mistake made by those who do not know that the battery monopoly is in the hands of China, but the new European Parliament, tells Formiche.net Fulvio Martusciello, head of Forza Italia’s delegation in the European Parliament, will have a new majority led by FI that will be able to change things. The blue exponent also analyzes the popular perspectives, the crisis of Franco-German leadership and the possibility that the new president of the European Commission is a popular one.
What is Forza Italia’s objective at the next European elections?
Strengthen the popular area and allow the EPP to be able to further guide Parliament’s processes. Let’s not forget that, according to the treaties, the party that gets the most votes somehow indicates the president of the Commission to the European Council, so the procedure is a bit cumbersome: it requires that the Council receives an indication of the party that won the elections and sends it to the European Parliament. Our goal is to have a popular person at the head of the Commission, thanks to the contribution of Forza Italia.
Do you think it will be possible to change the majority in the European Parliament, replicating the scheme of the Italian centre-right?
The problem is given by the fact that the group to which the League belongs has parties that do not share European values, so I find it complicated to have a majority that also includes such subjects. Let’s not forget what happened in 2019 when Italy elected 76 MEPs, 30 from the League and 14 from the Five Star Movement. Well there were also 44 in the so-called freezer, that is, they were classified as anti-European, even the Cinquestelle were in the group of non-members. Every time an amendment was presented it was automatically rejected. Today we need to vote and choose parliamentarians who belong to groups that will certainly be in the majority: Forza Italia will certainly be the majority that will guarantee Italy to be stronger and more competitive.
What impact will the farewell to petrol and diesel cars, added to the energy redevelopment of homes, have on a country like Italy?
It is one of those measures that we imagine we want to change, it is the fruit of that great madness that the Commission took through its commissioner, who was then soundly defeated in the Dutch elections and which marked the last stretch of Parliament’s work . It is not possible to imagine that we will switch to electric in 2035, giving China a monopoly on the car market, because let’s remember that the battery monopoly is in the hands of China which has conquered the lithium deposits. In this way Beijing will be able to influence the automotive sector even for a country like ours that lives on automotive. We can’t afford it.
Speaking of China, former Five Star Undersecretary Liuzzi has become a strategic consultant for Huawei. What do you think?
We must be competitive with China, setting clear rules. I’m not worried about the work that individual members of the Government do when they stop doing it, the problem concerns the system of rules of a country like Italy, how to raise barriers and deal with illegal competition from China. The real issue is how to build the capacity to make our products count and we must, with respect to China, be determined to really want to wage a political and economic battle against their incorrectness.
At the moment, Macron’s France is in crisis from a polling point of view, Scholz’s Germany is serving its novitiate in the Green government, Sanchez’s Spain is grappling with the scandal of the prime minister’s wife: Italy can be the the only country in Europe with not only political but also leadership stability?
France is paying for the weakness of the People’s Party and a search for interlocutors, because Macron has moved towards the center right and the French People’s Party have made the big mistake of chasing him. Today there is inevitably a difficulty in the political framework due to the lack of center in France. Let’s face it frankly, Macron is a model that is coming to an end and the alternative is still nebulous, because, as always, the only alternative for the French becomes Le Pen. And this of course is a problem for democracy. In Germany it was known that the red-green government would not produce anything for the Germans, it was obvious that sooner or later it would go into crisis. So in the face of these difficulties I see an Italy endowed with extraordinary stability, also due to the presence in the government of a man like Antonio Tajani who has such experience as to be able to withstand all the shocks that may come from everywhere.
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