Salvini, attack on the EU: “Timmermans? From forced hospitalization. The success of the BTP shows that the Mes is useless”

MANDURIA. Today is Matteo Salvini’s big day, at the Manduria farm. And from here he opens a very tough battle against the European commission, that daughter of the Ursula model who sees him on the barricades. We are talking about renewable energy. The minister insists on his position of a mix of wind, solar and nuclear power. But the crux is the full electric that Salvini does not accept.

«I hope that Timmermans-like ideology, i.e. the euro 7, is absolutely madness to be shelved. If you tell me that as of 2035 I can no longer put internal combustion car models on the market, you oblige companies to make a transition before 2035 by going from Euro 6 to Euro 7, it’s forced hospitalization stuff. First we send the euro 7 to the archive and then in 2026 in Europe there will be a check on the fundamentalist choices made by this commission. As well as on the house. Saying: from 2035 either electric or nothing, is something that probably suits someone. I saw the data on the Germany-China exchange. Exports from Germany to China: -23%. Imports from China to Germany, +28%. This is my reflection: just as there was a Qatar-gate, no one takes away from me the idea that there can’t be a China-gate, because some choices are either the result of ignorance or convenience. Tertium is not given”.

The bailout

The theme of the day is therefore the relationship with Europe, which Salvini continues to oppose. Even on the Mes, for example, the Northern League is for the hard line. If it were up to him, the Mes could be canceled as Italy can rely on the people of the BTPs: «The issue of the Valore vouchers – he says – marks a record in public savings. Hundreds of thousands of small savers have invested 18 billion euros in four days with a double advantage. Obviously Treasuries are not right or left. They are an index of Italian trust. I believe we have to trust our country, our businesses and our citizens. without going on adventures that we don’t know where it takes us”.

Bruno Vespa is pressing him: so you will never ratify the Mes?

«Never – Salvini chuckles – is an adverb that I have learned to use as little as possible. In my opinion it is not useful, it is not convenient, it is not advantageous, it is not the best way for Europe. At the moment there is certainly a revision of the rules relating to the Stability Pact. They must be re-discussed regardless of the Mes because we cannot go back to the pre-pandemic and austerity as if nothing had happened, because there is still a war going on. But I don’t put them on the same table. That is, you don’t review the Stability Pact the way I like it and in return I’ll sign you the Mes, an instrument in which I don’t believe.

And then it glides over the fateful Messina Bridge. Salvini’s eyes light up. «I tell the ideological no. We have already arrived on the bridge working day and night, amid a thousand difficulties, obstacles and perplexities, for the decree and for society. This was the week in which the top management of the Stretto di Messina company were appointed; today while we are here, they are working to update the project which dates back to a few years ago».

Yes, but when does it start? «In the time schedule that I have given myself informally and confidentially, if there is a program agreement with the Regions, the appropriations will be in the budget law in the autumn. Eh, there have been many controversies in the Chamber and in the newspapers: it is enough to know, from which world and world, the appropriations are in the budget law, not in the decrees. So in October there will be all the necessary public money, and I say public because secondly I will like that we can also go and ask for a private contribution. However, my timetable foresees that in the summer, perhaps as early as the end of spring, the construction sites will be open».

And with the occasion, the minister also responds to those who criticize him for wanting to create a very expensive cathedral in the desert. «Very true, the bridge alone does not solve anything. It would be an extraordinary work of Italian engineering and genius, but structurally it solves nothing… But now construction sites are underway, including roads and railways, for 28 billion in Sicily and Calabria. The argument “make the bridge and I have no roads and railways now no longer holds”. In fact, the opposite is now true. We are investing 11 billion to speed up the trains between Palermo Catania and Messina; the same for Salerno-Reggio Calabria. Planning is in progress. So we would be investing tens of billions to get to Messina and Reggio quickly by train, and then we have that caesura whereby the train is stopped, broken up, put on the ferry at the end, and goes to the other side, I put it back together, and does it restart after two hours? Only a person with little common sense invests tens of billions for high-speed with a hole in the middle.