“Painful but necessary choice” –

Raffaele Fitto is the candidate who will represent Italy in the new European Commission presided in her second term by Ursula von der Leyen. The choice of the Minister of European Affairs, Cohesion Policies and the PNRR, which confirms the forecasts of the day before, came at the end of the Council of Ministers on Friday 30 August at Palazzo Chigi.

“I believe it is appropriate to share with all of you, after having already done so for some time with the other leaders of the majority, an extremely important decision. I received the letter from the President of the European Commission Von der Leyen asking the Government to designate the proposed Italian candidate for the role of European Commissioner. This is a delicate and very important choice for us and for Italy in the coming years. Our choice falls on a person who has a great deal of experience and who has been able to govern the delegations that have been entrusted to him in this government with excellent results: Minister Raffaele Fitto”, is what was reported, according to internal sources at Palazzo Chigi, by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Council of Ministers.

“Today I will communicate the name to President Von der Leyen and I ask everyone to applaud and wish Raffaele good luck, who will have an extremely complex and at the same time exciting task ahead of him. It is a painful choice for me, I think also for him, and for the government, but it is a necessary choice. After that, obviously, we will continue to work on the role that we ask to be assigned to Italy. And, despite seeing many Italians rooting against a role that is adequate for our nation, I have no reason to believe that that role will not be recognized. Not out of sympathy or antipathy towards our government, but more simply because we are Italy, a founding nation, the second largest manufacturer and third largest European economy, the third largest member state by population, with primacy in many fields. And, today, we can also count on a newfound political stability and an economic solidity that few others have in the rest of Europe”, concludes Meloni.