Giorgia Meloni has written a scathing letter to the President of the European Council, Ant\u00f3nio Costa, in the wake of the talks held on Wednesday 4 November between representatives of Ukraine, the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the World Bank to discuss Ukraine\u2019s future and reconstruction, to condemn \u201cthe proliferation of competing diplomatic formats and initiatives.\u201d <\/p>\n
“I am convinced that we all recognise that, by giving the impression of a Europe pulling in different directions, we are doing nothing but playing into the hands of those who want this war to continue,”<\/em> she wrote, calling for the appointment of a single representative \u201cto speak with one voice on the Ukrainian issue\u201d, and formally requesting that the matter be discussed at next week\u2019s informal summit of EU leaders in Dublin so that a decision on the appointment can be taken at the December European Council. <\/p>\n This is already the second time the Prime Minister has spoken out on the matter<\/strong>, after she publicly criticised last week the initiative taken by the Finnish President, Alexander Stubb, together with the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr St\u00f8re, to call Putin in the hope of securing some role as \u2018mediators\u2019 to bring the conflict to an end.<\/p>\n Undoubtedly, then, even though Giorgia Meloni emphasised in her letter that she was \u201cnot seeking a place for Italy or for herself at any specific negotiating table\u201d, the fact that Italy has been consistently excluded from the various more or less ad hoc \u2018formats\u2019 that have emerged so far also carries weight. <\/p>\n It should be added, however, that to lend greater credibility to Meloni\u2019s legitimate dissatisfaction<\/strong>, perhaps what is needed first and foremost is a more consistent approach from the government she leads<\/strong>, which involves many players. <\/p>\n It is, in fact, unusual for a Deputy Prime Minister \u2013 representing one of the parties in the governing coalition \u2013 to campaign for an immediate end to aid to Ukraine, when this very factor is the main glue holding together Europe\u2019s commitment to that country. <\/p>\n So much so that the approval of the military aid package for Ukraine \u2013 which Palazzo Chigi has had on hold for many months \u2013 will apparently resume only in the coming days (coincidentally after the US mid-term elections?).<\/p>\n Furthermore, Italy has one foot in and one foot out of the so-called<\/strong> \u201cCoalition of the Willing<\/strong>\u201d set up by France and the United Kingdom to involve as many countries as possible<\/strong>, including those outside the EU, to draw up plans to coordinate military and intelligence support for Ukraine in light of the US withdrawal and to prepare security guarantees for the future. <\/p>\n Troops from ten member states will take part in a field exercise in south-eastern Poland from 9 to 22 November.<\/p>\n Italy, of course, will not be there. But standing on the sidelines, promising aid only to then have to navigate not only among its own domestic allies but also within the international balance of power \u2013 to please one side without upsetting the other too much – is a long-term gamble that is difficult to sustain.<\/strong> <\/p>\n The attempt not to sever ties with anyone \u2013 even with those who are clearly pursuing a policy that stands in direct contradiction to the one that European institutions and \u201cwilling\u201d countries pursue- undermines the justified call \u2013 which we hope will indeed be heeded \u2013 to appoint a single European representative at the table for any potential and desirable peace negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Standing idly by, promising aid only to then have to navigate not only among one\u2019s own national allies but also within the international balance of power \u2013 to satisfy one side without upsetting the other too much \u2013 is a long-term gamble that is difficult to sustain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7592,"featured_media":470328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25711,25707],"tags":[27175,26064,28371,36541,30781],"class_list":["post-470359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","category-world-politics","tag-giorgia-meloni-en","tag-negotiation-en","tag-tavoli-negoziali","tag-ukraine-in-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470362,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470359\/revisions\/470362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}