what is the political project of the new president?

President Meloni attended her first meeting with EU leaders in Brussels as the new Council President. “Italy’s voice in Europe will be strong,” the Prime Minister herself announced on Facebook. “We are ready to tackle the big problems, starting with the energy crisis, working together for a quick and effective solution to support families and businesses.”

But what European political project does President Meloni have in mind? Following his last declarations, we will try to draw from them the three key points and the medium-term political objectives.

Melons / ANSA PHOTOS / STEPHANIE LECOCQ

Melons and EU control of key supply chains

“What the current crisis tells us is that this European model feared by the centrists has had its limits. We wanted to regulate the cooking of insects. One of a thousand surreal directives that have been made. But we didn’t realize that we didn’t have an energy strategy, that we didn’t have a common defense policy, that we didn’t have a foreign policy, that we had chains supply too long. These are the words of President Meloni in a well-known television program this year regarding the current political and economic structure of the EU. One of the key points of his political vision would be to regain greater political incisiveness from the European Union, and better control of fundamental supply chains.

Giorgia Meloni / ANSA PHOTOS / FILIPPO ATTILI

Community solutions based on shorter supply chains and investments, for the Prime Minister, would alleviate the strategic dependence of the EU, in the medium term, on foreign powers. In this regard, in a crucial sector such as technology, for example, the EU today is tragically exposed to exogenous shocks. About 99% rely on Taiwanese chips and 80% rely on US big data or cloud technologies. Realities like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are the masters, making around 70% of the sector’s turnover abroad. Recently, the Franco-German Gaia-X initiative had laid the foundations for a pan-European infrastructure. Which had initially met with the support of the European Commission precisely because of the value of “digital sovereignty”. To date “inexplicably” blocked, it leaves the EU in a position of technological subjection, the “chip war” between China and the United States risking being fatal.

Europe and relations with the United States

“I always say that NATO should have two columns, one European and the other American. Our destiny is certainly Western like that of the Americans, but our interests, for geopolitical reasons, are not always the same. So Europe must make itself heard. With regard to the American ally, President Meloni reaffirms the necessary Atlanticist position, but with a more protagonist European role on the world stage, in the fierce defense of European geopolitical interests, if necessary also towards Washington. Hence the urgent demand from the European army. “If Europe decides as it has decided in recent years to entrust its defense to others, Europe also leaves its freedom to others. Because others don’t defend you for free. They defend you in exchange for a sphere of influence. And you pay that money you saved on guns into other things. “In fact, on the military resource front, the EU is now heavily exposed. Buying about 60% of the same outside of Europe. Buying US weapons is a way to get some kind of additional military protection from Washington.

Melons and the Demand for Confederal (Not Federal) Change

“My idea of ​​Europe is that of a confederal Europe in which the principle of subsidiarity applies. Where Brussels does not do what Rome knows how to do best, and where Rome does not act where, alone, you you’re not competitive.” President Meloni would be in favor of greater involvement of EU institutions in global and purely macroeconomic political issues. Energy, defence, foreign countries, money: these are interests to be strongly protected “outside” like the Europeans in the globalized market.Without abdicating for the logic of the principle of subsidiarity, the autonomy of each individual Member State in the exercise of its national sovereignty.

Melons and Metsola / ANSA PHOTO

What is the difference with the federalist plan? On the contrary, federalism provides for greater centralization and therefore greater control of European institutions over national policies, starting with fiscal and budgetary policies. The EU is still neither a confederation nor a federation. Both paths hide several unknowns. The confederal plan, desired by President Meloni, requires political cohesion and a feeling of consolidated solidarity to generate a real global impact. While the federal has the advantage of ensuring speed and compactness. Even the simple transition to majority voting – and no longer unanimous – in the European Council would represent a turning point towards a new idea of ​​Europe.