«The voters will answer»- Corriere.it

“What would have happened if, in 1994, Silvio Berlusconi had excluded the Social Movement?”. It is Matteo Salvini’s question that many of his faithful repeat to anyone who asks: “What is the strategy?”. The reference to Berlusconi the “federator” who cleared the MSI almost thirty years ago, according to the Northern League fits perfectly with the “incomprehensible” barrage coming from the (not only) Italian exponents of the European People’s Party, first of all the blue coordinator Antonio Tajani. Which in recent days has certified the incompatibility of Marine Le Pen and the Germans of Afd with the Ppe.

Yesterday Salvini answered the blue coordinator dryly: “The voters will answer to Tajani”. With a series of aimed shots: «What does anti-European mean? Criticize the ECB that raises household mortgages with your actions? Ask for a common policy against immigration?’ As for the allies: “The first party in France, Austria, Belgium, the second party in Germany, what are the mad people who vote for them?”. The group leader in the Senate Massimiliano Romeo adds: «We need to overcome these vetoes. Without unity, the risk is that the left will continue to govern with all the damage that the EU is doing”.

Not just words: yesterday the technical table of Palazzo Chigi concluded, on the basis of the mapping of the Ministry of Transport led by Salvini, that there is no shortage of beaches. This is the premise for not putting sandy shores in competition as the Union has been asking for years: the idea is that coasts that are still free could be assigned instead of calling for tenders for those already occupied. Of course, the Northern Leaguers are well aware of the risk of being cut off from the control room again, after the European Championships in June 2024.

There are those who are even bitter about Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to flooded Emilia-Romagna: “Who had ever seen her?”. Proven proof, according to the Northern League, that the outgoing president could be the official candidate (spitzenkandidat) of the Ppe. There are those who take comfort in Giorgia Meloni’s symmetrical difficulty with respect to the Polish allies of the Pis, equally Eurocritical of Le Pen. And never mind if the Poles are anti-Russian bulwarks, unlike Le Pen’s Rassemblement.
But Salvini, with his proposal for a common front, puts it like this: «There is a government that has been working in Italy for eight months, and the Italians appreciate the results. Therefore, I asked the allies to replicate the same formula of united centre-right also in Europe». The blue group leader Paolo Barelli replies: “Tajani does not veto, the EPP invites Salvini without any problems”.

But if «Salvini wants Le Pen with him, it is difficult: singing together long live Europe seems difficult». The Northern League are not hiding another problem: «At the Europeans, what should we say? What should we propose to the voters?». It being understood that, after the elections, “the numbers to elect the president will count, more than today’s statements”.

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