Meloni at the European Council: flexibility on energy and Ukraine, domestic jabs

On the eve of the European Council, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni briefed Parliament on the positions she intended to bring to the Brussels summit: fiscal flexibility, support for Ukraine and a joint response to rising energy prices (Today.it).

At the European table, the Italian request touched on several fronts: a coordinated and swift response to high energy costs, a halt to the Ets emissions trading system, a community budget free of new taxes, and funding for migrant reception facilities modelled on the agreement with Albania (Gazzetta di Reggio).

In the same address to Parliament, Meloni flagged as a risk the openness shown by Donald Trump toward allowing Russian diesel imports, an issue intertwined with the call for European unity on sanctions and energy. The Italian government’s approach thus seeks to hold together two tracks: on one hand, pressure on Brussels for domestic economic support measures, and on the other, a call for consistency within the Western front on energy supplies tied to Russia (Today.it).

The parliamentary speech was not limited to European issues: the prime minister directed some criticism at the opposition, in particular the Five Star Movement and its president Giuseppe Conte, in a passage delivered just hours before the meeting with other EU leaders (Today.it).

It should be noted that the information reported here comes from two outlets — Today.it and Gazzetta di Reggio — whose mutual independence from a primary source cannot be verified: it cannot be ruled out that both draw on the same agency coverage of the parliamentary session and the Brussels summit.

The government’s agenda for the summit thus brings together three distinct issues — the EU budget, energy and migration policy — with the diplomatic handling of sanctions on Russia, in a context in which Washington’s choices on Russian diesel are being presented by Rome as a risk factor for the cohesion of the Western front.