“The letter to von der Leyen? No friction with the Commission” –

“Clumsy and specious attacks” with “fake news” against the Italian government after the Annual Report on the Rule of Law of the European Union. Giorgia Meloni wrote this in a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. And the Prime Minister returned to the topic in response to a question from journalists in Beijing. “I do not see any negative repercussions for Italy, I do not believe that relations with the European Commission are worsening. The European Commission and I have discussed” the report on the rule of law “and moreover the letter that I sent is not a response to the European Commission or a moment of friction with the European Commission, it is a shared reflection on the instrumentalization that has been made of a technical document in which I am obliged to point out that the critical accents are not from the European Commission but from some stakeholders”, she stressed speaking to the press.

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In the report, “the European Commission – the Prime Minister stated – reports critical tones from some stakeholders: Domani, Fatto Quotidiano, Repubblica… However, the European Commission is not my direct interlocutor, but those who exploit that report which, among other things, does not say anything particularly new compared to previous years, this too would be worth remembering”. The governance of Rai “is defined by a 2015 law that the Renzi government made” and “they say that there is intimidation of the press because there are politicians who sue some journalists for defamation but I don’t think that in Italy there is a rule that says that if you have a journalist’s card, which I also have in my pocket, you can freely defame someone and say that politicians who start a defamation lawsuit are carrying out intimidation actions, it means not even having respect for the independence of judges”, Meloni continued.

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“For example, some complaints that I made are also taken into consideration, I made them when I was in opposition, not when I was in government. I understand the attempt to exploit, that is, I know the attempt to seek external help by a left in Italy that is evidently very sorry not to be able to use, for example, the public service as if it were a party section, but – he concluded – I cannot help on this precisely because I believe in freedom of information and of the press”.