Bonelli: “Meloni wants to sabotage the ecological transition, the Europeans must be opposed with an alliance for the climate”

President Meloni began her electoral campaign for the European elections by attacking the ecological transition and will coordinate the entire European sovereign right, to dismantle Europe’s green policies with fake news and with a communication strategy worthy of Steve Bannon’s direction.
The objective is to build a political majority in the European Parliament that can pivot on a popular and conservative alliance and thus defend the interests of an economic model which is at the root of the serious economic, social and environmental crisis. The first experiment of this strategy took place a few days ago in the environment commission of the European Parliament with the vote against the popular, conservative and extreme right, against “the nature restoration law” the European directive which aims to recover 20% of natural areas degraded by 2040.
Addressing the industrialists of Assolombarda, Meloni said: “We cannot dismantle our economy to pursue the ecological transition”. What the prime minister failed to say is that the climate crisis has already weakened our economy by making businesses and households pay a high price, both for the direct damage caused by climate change and for the increase in energy and food prices with the consequent increase in inflation and interest rates which made the cost of living unsustainable. On 26 August 2022, gas had a price of €315/MWh. The social and economic disaster, caused by gas speculation, has led too many families and businesses to poverty, while extra energy profits accumulated for 40 billion euros which former Prime Minister Draghi decided to tax, a tax that Meloni once becomes president hastened to demolish. Today the cost of gas is 35 €/Mwh but the bills have not decreased. This is the social right as opposed to Giorgia Meloni.
The Italian government does not read the reports of the Bank of Italy or the European Environment Agency which indicate how the climate crisis generates economic damages which, although not accounted for in the state budget, enter as costs of the community through other channels such as funds emergency for: nourishment, hydrogeological instability, drought, floods. The European Environment Agency has estimated that the damages from extreme weather events in Italy up to 2020 reached the figure of 90 billion and today we can say that with the latest events they have exceeded 100 billion euros, while the damages from smog cause 52,000 deaths a year at a cost of 47 billion euros a year. With these data, the Meloni government has prepared a climate plan that transforms Italy into a gas hub that does not meet the objectives on renewables and speaks of a Mattei plan that no one has read because there is no government document in this regard, but which has the sole objective of transforming Africa into an energy servitude for Italy.
This theft of the future that the Italian and European right wants to carry out must be stopped. Their climate denier policies that want to sabotage the ecological transition and question civil and social rights impose responsibilities and a change of pace working to build a credible and authoritative proposal for the next European elections. A political platform not a new party, which starting from the experience of the Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra goes further, identifying common objectives that unite and do not divide to give life to an eco-social alliance for the climate and democracy, relaunching the political project of Europe with a common foreign and defense policy. Europe must assume the role that puts it in a position to build policies of peace and defense against those who invade and violate international law as is happening in Russia’s criminal war in Ukraine. The rejection of the referendum promoted by the Luca Coscioni association has generated a deep wound that must be healed for the good of our democracy, giving answers on the merits of the legalization of cannabis and legal euthanasia.
In Italy the experience of civic coalitions, of many mayors and former mayors, of many local administrators, the battles for the rights of radical political culture, the original and creative experience of Possibile, the many territorial realities such as those of Liguria, Sardinia and Lazio, all young people who mobilize for the climate, the associations that fight against poverty and inequality and for the rights and duties of migrants, the world of science and research can be linked together in the construction of a political platform that identifies common initiatives and a pro-European program for the climate, democracy, work and rights. Let’s all get to work now.

(The author is co-spokesman of Europe Green-Greens and AVS deputy)