Meloni chooses Fitto for the EU and signs the pact with the allies for the maneuver –

A “painful choice” but necessary. It is with these words that Giorgia Meloni shares with the ministers, in the first Council of Ministers after the summer break, the decision to nominate Raffaele Fitto for a weighty role in Brussels. With a portfolio worth over 1000 billion, between cohesion and the PNRR. And – one hopes and fights with this firm objective – an executive vice-presidency to win. The indication comes at Cesarini’s time, given that today is the last day available to indicate the ‘name’ that Italy has in store. An open secret, given that it has been talked about for months and months, above all, that Meloni has been discussing it with Ursula von der Leyen. Before informing the ministers, Meloni calls the opposition on the phone: on the other end of the line Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte.

The phone calls arrive as Fitto crosses the door of Palazzo Chigi, dodging journalists, his gaze serious, not even a hint of a smile. It almost seems that something has gone wrong, but there is no question about his name. If anything, it is foreign policy that is heating up the majority, in the center-right summit that takes place before the Council of Ministers. And from which a new majority pact emerges, made between the prime minister, Antonio Tajani, Matteo Salvini and Maurizio Lupi after an August in which there was no shortage of blows. The big issues are all on the table: from Rai to autonomy, passing through justice and the seaside resorts, without forgetting the prison emergency, just to name a few of the most long-standing ones. But above all, there is talk of maneuver.

“It will be a budget law inspired, like the previous ones, by common sense and seriousness. The season of money thrown out the window and bonuses is over and will not return as long as we are in government”, the prime minister will say at the opening of the Council of Ministers, in a long speech that bounces around the agencies and that almost seems like a motivational speech (“forward without fear”, she urges the team). In the budget law, priority will be given to “tax cuts, support for young people, families and birth rates, and interventions for companies that hire”. No flags, the message is under the radar.

The image that is being conveyed is of a united executive, of a majority that is not affected by the August controversies. Even the issue of Ius Scholae, which in recent weeks has caused the League and FI to argue, is put on the table by Tajani but put away in a drawer, because the government program is being moved forward, reforms ‘outside the bag’ will only find space if there is full convergence between the allies. And on the issue of citizenship, Salvini and the blue leader could not be further apart.

But it is at the summit and the Council of Ministers that chaos breaks out, with an ‘oversight’ in the joint note of the center-right that leaves room for many doubts. The League releases the statement simultaneously with Meloni’s staff, but the note differs in a fundamental passage, namely on Italy’s line on the war in Ukraine, a topic that registers, as is known, different sensitivities. In the text released by the Carroccio, then rectified by the League shortly thereafter, support for Kiev was confirmed, but opposition was specified “to any hypothesis of military interventions outside the Ukrainian borders”. Opposition then promptly whitewashed. “The text (sent by mistake but immediately corrected) – Matteo Salvini finds himself intervening to put an end to the mystery – was modified in full agreement with all the other leaders only for stylistic choice and not for content”. Therefore, “it is a simple mistake, we reiterated the government line that the League has always supported”. An oversight, if we want to believe in good faith and the absence of a voluntary error, which nevertheless ended up casting shadows on the ‘pacification’ action carried out by the prime minister. An action that also touched on the issue of autonomy, dear to the League and a fuse of arguments and disagreements in a fiery August. In the Council of Ministers, in fact, Meloni points the finger at “the distorted narrative of the left that paints us as enemies of the South, who want to humiliate the South and split Italy with differentiated autonomy. Because they can’t tell the truth, and that is that with this government investments in the South have increased by 50%, which means that it could have been done before, but it wasn’t done”, she accuses. The prime minister claims what she considers the successes of her government, starting with the “change of pace” on immigration, with a 64% cut in landings. And the Mattei Plan, which invites support even when there are others at the helm of Palazzo Chigi, “overcoming barriers” for the “good of the country”.

He then reiterates that he will amend the flaws in the Bossi-Fini law, with a measure that will soon reach the Council of Ministers, and reiterates that the ‘Caivanò model’ will be exported to other difficult suburbs, that the promise made a year ago will be kept. “We must move forward without fear – the government team urges -, because we promised that we would leave Italy better than we found it and if this is the goal we must delve deeply into the problems and resolve them with courage. We will change the things that don’t work and do what needs to be done. Only the Italians, at the end of the legislature, will judge us”. The government has complex challenges ahead of it, starting with the recovery plan with which it will have to convince Brussels, with a cut in the structural deficit of at least 0.5% per year, or about 10 billion per year from now to 7 years. A titanic undertaking, with the prime minister who will indeed be able to count on Fitto, but who with him loses a fundamental pawn in Rome. Who, barring surprises, she does not intend to replace: Meloni will keep the interim for herself, the delegations now in the hands of the ‘golden boy’ of Maglie distributed and Palazzo Chigi, between Alfredo Mantovano and Giovanbattista Fazzolari. Also to avoid that, by touching a pawn, a domino effect is generated, igniting the appetites of the allies and undermining the balance on which the government rests. Because -Andreotti docet- it is a sin to think badly, but often you are right.