background of a dinner that shouldn’t have been – Corriere.it

Giorgia Meloni would probably have done well not to protest the lack of invitation to the dinner organized in a hurry by Emmanuel Macron for Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday evening. She should have let it go for many reasons. But first of all why it wasn’t something serious. The meeting which began at 10 in the evening and was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not produce nothing significant. It wasn’t planned until a few hours ago, it wasn’t prepared and it was only organized because the French president was impressed by it successful visit of the Ukrainian leader to Londonthe same day.

Politico.eu newspaper revealed that Macron and his wife had decided to go to the theater, Wednesday evening. During the day, however, images and reports of Zelensky’s triumphal visit to the United Kingdom rained down on European televisions and websites: the interview with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak; the hypothesis of British fighters for the defense of Ukraine; the speech at Westminster Hall with special thanks to Boris Johnson (Macron’s bete noire); the press conference with the embrace of the Bcc journalist; the meeting with King Charles III. Could Paris stay one step behind London? No, in the idea of ​​the French president, who hurriedly organized Zelensky’s evening trip, on the spot, according to Elysée officials: not exactly a format chosen by the Ukrainian leader, unlike what Macron claimed in replying to Meloni.

One way or another, however, the rushed dinner had its media moment and the French president crowned her with the awarding of the Legion of Honour to the Ukrainian one. Also Politico.eu, he says that in recent weeks in Paris he had thought of an official visit from Zelensky, not a simple stopover between London on Wednesday and Brussels the next day. But the very symbolic idea of ​​carrying it out on February 24th, the anniversary of the Russian invasion, was not wise, given the possible strong Russian offensive for the occasion. In addition, during an official and organized meeting, Paris would have liked to offer, to the Ukrainians who ask, more weapons than what already d? Would you have liked to leave the door open to hunting expeditions as London did? Did she have something new to give?

The Italian discussion on Macron’s non-invitation should perhaps be downgraded, so. It is true that France and Germany have been the engine of the European Union. It is true that even today very little can be done in the EU without their consent. But the photograph of the Wednesday night dinner in Paris does not seem to fit into the portfolio where there are the historical ones of Mitterrand and Kohl or even just those of Sarkozy and Merkel. Furthermore, the Italian government knows that relations between the 27 EU countries are fluid at the moment. The Russian threat on the east flank and the errors of assessment on Moscow’s danger committed in recent years by Paris, Berlin, Rome and others are changing relations between Europeans: FFrance and Germany now have to reckon with an EU in transformation also with regard to decision mechanisms and power relations; good that they meet but now they don’t decide everything themselves.

In this moving framework, Europe without a leader. Macron could have been but a politician who divides more than he unites, unlike Angela Merkelwhich has committed numerous and probably serious errors but it had the ability to hold the entire EU together. The French president, on the other hand, has not only clashes with Meloni, he has a bad relationship with some Eastern European countries, he carries on together with Scholz a turning point on subsidies to the economy that divides the 27 and it has often forced the EU to take an unnecessarily stiff stance with the UK ever since the British citizens decided on Brexit. For the Italian government, however, there are no real reasons not to have a good relationship with France and above all with Germany – the two countries still central to the EU. Based on a national but also a European vision. Meloni has no interest in maintaining bad relations with Macron, although he may have some political differences and there is not an easy personal chemistry between the two. On closer inspection, perhaps it was not a bad thing for her to have dinner in Rome on Wednesday.