«No authoritarian drift. Let’s do what Draghi did»- Corriere.it

«They prevent a minister from speaking, we complain, even if we are used to it, but Schlein strikes me on everything: she says that we have a problem with dissent. If the secretary of the second Italian party it does not distinguish dissent from censorshipin Italy we do have a problem».

Giorgia Meloni gives herself all-out in an interview with Nicholas Porro on Rete 4. From international politics (“We are not Italy spaghetti and mandolin”) to internal politics (“The left is running out of arguments, because we are dismantling the story of an authoritarian right, incapable of governing”), up to personal plan: «Living in Palazzo Chigi? I don’t even think about it i prefer my house».

On the eve of one lightning mission in Tunisia, where he will be this morning, to meet the prime minister and reassure the local government that Rome is doing everything possible to unblock international financial aid, Meloni sends several messages. And he concedes more than a joke: «When you are prime minister almost everything that happens in the world concerns you. The unexpected, when you’re in charge of government, is the most accurate prediction you can make. For me, working in a schematic way, it had a very strong impact. You chase the emergency and you must be able to keep the bar straight.’

But personal considerations are intertwined with political assessments, to his goals as a leader who can have a European projection: «I’m at the head of a solid majority, I give myself five years as a horizon. And that means that I’m not governing by looking at instant consent and I can afford it. If you have this luck, choices can be made that in the long run will be read for what they were,” she added.

The prime minister admits that government experience is capable of changing many beliefs (“Studying the dossiers you realize that not everything goes as you thought, that you have to think of workable solutions”), but still there is a consistency core which in her opinion should be preserved: «If to privilege myself I have to sell off myself or the nation, I’m not willing to do it. To this day, I’d rather go home than become different from the person I consider myself to be.”

In this scheme, in his opinion, there are many choices made in recent months by the government, starting with the posture towards the Ukrainian conflict: «The opposition of a substantial part of the Italians to military aid to Ukraine it’s understandable, but I’m willing to lose a piece of my popularity because if I said the opposite to indulge common sense, not assuming the responsibilities I have as head of government, and tomorrow I find myself a war closer to my homeI would not have served the interests of my nation”.

We return several times to relations with the opposition: «It was said that with Meloni the locusts would arrive, the stock market would collapse. The stock market is doing very well, the spread is lowerThe hedge funds have stopped betting against the Italian public debt, the BTP value has done very well».

According to Meloni «the left says that you are authoritarian in everything: if Fabio Fazio decides to leave Rai to go to work where they pay him the most; self at the June 2 parade, as has always happened, the soldiers raise their hand to greet the rostrum». And, again, «the left says that there is one authoritarian drift if on the Court of Auditors you extend the rules of the Draghi government, of which they were part ».

Then on the basic income: «With the subsidy people remain poor, work is the only social elevator». A question about Macron: «Of course we talk to each other. Relations between states are one thing, those between parties are another”. Today will be in Tunis: «We work to avoid default of that State, a risk that must be averted”.

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