Conte in Brussels to say no to rearmament: “In Ukraine, the warmongering strategy is a failed bet”

Brussels – Europe has failed because Russia now has “greater negotiating power than it had in the immediate aftermath of aggression.” The leader of the 5 Star Movement, Giuseppe Conte, returns to the attack in Brussels to decisively reiterate two no’s: to the rearmament of the continent and to the “warmongering strategy of betting on the military victory against Russia.” A “failed bet,” according to the former premier.

On the entrance steps of the European Parliament in Brussels, together with the eight 5 Star MEPs and about a hundred girls and boys from the party’s Youth Network, Conte pointed the finger at Giorgia Meloni’s government (and Mario Draghi’s before her), which “should absolutely have fought to impart a negotiating breakthrough in line with what is the tradition, the sensibility of our people and our country.” Instead, according to the 5 Star leader, after “three years of falsehoods,” the reality is that the EU bloc strategy espoused by Italy is “a failure.”

For the Movement, “it is clear that by now everyone understands that the negotiated solution is the only possible one.” But, the president pressed, “if they had understood it earlier,” in Washington as well as in London and Brussels, “we would surely have been spared hundreds of thousands of deaths and destruction.”

To the possibility that Vladimir Putin, expected Thursday, May 15, in Istanbul for a face-to-face with Zelensky, would defect and refuse a cessation of hostilities, Conte replied, “You negotiate even if not in-person,” and warned of the risk of “getting into these games” and making definitive assessments “on individual steps, gestures, statements.”

The warning becomes an alarm when you plan for a European rearming, because “if you convert the industry today”, whereby instead of cars you produce “missiles and tanks,” you will continue to produce “missiles and tanks always for the future.” And “when you have all these armaments, then you have to use them,” the former premier continued.

Towards referendums: four yeses on labour, on citizenship, we need Ius Scholae

In the midst of campaigning for the June 8–9 referendum, Conte has indicated the line to Movement members. Four yeses for the queries on labour, because “working men and women who in Italy already live with the problem of very low wages” and “even the absence of a legal minimum wage” have “the opportunity to have greater protection and security.” As for the fifth question, which would halve from ten to five years the period of legal residence in Italy required for a non-EU foreigner of age to apply for Italian citizenship, the 5 Star Movement decided to allow a free vote.

“We have done an internal reflection,” Conte explained, “and this is not the solution. The risks would be twofold: “I fear that the country is not ready for this halving and that the battle for Ius Scholae will be thrown away,” the M5S leader continued. Conte, however, declared that he will “vote yes” on the citizenship question as well, slapping the government, “very irresponsible” for inviting working men and women not to go to the polls.