After the internal issues, between the Council of Ministers and the electoral campaign for the European elections, the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, returns to deal with continental affairs. Wednesday 8th, at 11.30 am, the Prime Minister will receive the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, while at 5pm he will be in the Chamber, in the Sala della Regina, where he is expected to speak at the meeting “The Constitution for everyone. Dialogue on the premiership”. Speaking of the summit with the NATO secretary general, Stoltenberg could ask the prime minister what they are Italy’s paths to reach 2 percent for military spendingwhich for NATO is a preliminary ruling that will also be discussed in Washington at the meeting of the prime ministers of the countries of the Atlantic alliance in July.
“We must ensure that we are an active part of NATO and respect the commitments we have to make with them. I believe that we must reach 2% (of GDP, ed.) but this figure must be separated from the expenses we carry out for all the missions, because we are among the countries with the most international missions. We are moving towards 2%, however, taking into account all the expenses that are made in the many Italian missions”, explains the leader of FI, Antonio Tajani. It is worth remembering one detail. Italy is trying to send a Samp-T air defense system to Ukraine. The UK has secured other types of devices.
Austin and the general secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, are also intensifying the pressure on Sweden and Romania. The NATO generals share the words pronounced at the G7 in Capri by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken: “It’s not too late, the new American aid package allows Ukraine to withstand the Russian offensive”. And this will certainly be a significant chapter of the conversation. “Ukraine and the Middle East are two very complicated situations, we work for peace both in Ukraine and in the Middle East, we hope that common sense will prevail even if it is very difficult to make it prevail”, reiterates the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Antonio Tajani“We are ready to help civilian populations“, he added, “we will help Ukraine defend itself, we will not send a single soldier to fight. It’s one thing to help Ukraine, it’s another to wage war on Russia: we are not at war with Russia.” And the Ukrainian crisis will be the backdrop to everything.
Yet many political analysts have taken to the rubric Wednesday’s meeting between Meloni and Stoltenberg as a courtesy visit, being the Norwegian politician at the end of his mandate. But in the European context there are very few courtesies. End of mandate or not, the Roman meeting will still be important diplomatic appointmentbecause ithe number one of the Alliance will deliver to Rome a explicit and uncomfortable message: given the times, it would be appreciated if you accelerated the increase in military spending, allocating 2% of GDP for that purpose. In short, asking Italy to get in line with its commitments well before 2028, a fact reiterated by Minister Guido Crosetto to cross that finish line. The answer, however, could be very diplomatic, but only due to lack of alternatives: we would like to, but resources are really scarce. An inconvenient warning, it was said, because the government is not in a position to appear receptive to Western requests. Having sensed the problem early on, Crosetto himself had asked Meloni and Giancarlo Giorgetti to fight as hard as they could to try to separate defense costs from the parameters of the Stability Pact: at the moment the mission is at a standstill.
And now the prime minister will have no choice but to hypothesize with Stoltenberg some upward refinements compared to the commitments made in the 2023-2025 defense programmatic document, to be brought as a political gift to theimportant NATO summit next July 9-11 in Washington and, even before, at the G7 in Puglia where he will sit at the Presidency desk. The prime minister’s week includes, on Thursday at 11.30, Meloni’s presence in the Senate for the celebrations of the ‘Remembrance Day’ dedicated to the victims of terrorism. Finally, two meetings at Palazzo Chigi are on the agenda on Friday: at 11.30 the prime minister will see the President of Bavaria, Markus Thomas Theodor Söder; while in the afternoon, at 3.30 pm, he will receive the Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani.
