Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Unlikely allies? Italian PM Giuseppe Conte meets Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump receives Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Monday, welcoming to the White House a European populist with like-minded views on immigration and trade.

Published: 30 July 2018 08:51 CEST
Updated: 30 July 2018 10:00 CEST
Unlikely allies? Italian PM Giuseppe Conte meets Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump (L) and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Photos: Nicholas Kamm and Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

The visit will begin with a one-on-one meeting followed by more extensive bilateral discussions, the White House said.

“Italy is an important NATO Ally, a leading partner in Afghanistan and Iraq, and key in bringing stability to the Mediterranean region,” the White House said in announcing the visit last month, the new prime minister's first.

Trump praised Conte as “great” after meeting him at the recent G7 summit in Canada, where they warmly shook hands during the family photo.

Conte is “very strong on immigration — like I am, by the way,” said Trump, who has pursued a policy of “zero tolerance” for illegal immigration, a crackdown that led to hundreds of children being separated from parents who crossed into the United States from Mexico without papers.

READ ALSO:

Conte was chosen to lead the Italian government by the leaders of parties that won March elections: the euro skeptic Five Star Movement and the far-right League party. The Italian press has suggested the meeting will serve to boost Conte's profile, often overshadowed by his deputy prime ministers and those parties' exuberant leaders: Matteo Salvini of the League party, and Luigi Di Maio of the Five Star Movement.

Conte wants to reform the Dublin Regulation, the EU law that says asylum requests should be the responsibility of a single member country, usually the one where the refugee first arrived.

Italy argues that the law places an unfair burden on countries that border the Mediterranean, and its new populist government has stepped up pressure on other EU countries to share responsibility for arriving refugees.

It has closed Italy's ports to migrants and turned back several ships carrying refugees rescued at sea, threatening the future of those operations.

Friend of Russia

Both Trump and Conte also favour better relations with Russia. Already deeply at odds with US allies on trade, the environment and Iran, opened another front in Canada by calling for Russia to be brought back into G7 meetings, ending its isolation over its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“I think it would be good for Russia, I think it would be good for the United States, I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7,” Trump said.

Conte, who was making his international debut at the G7, said he agreed with Trump, setting himself apart from his European colleagues.

On trade, the two men share the same skepticism when it comes to free trade: Trump has blasted several international pacts such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), while Conte refused to ratify the CETA free trade agreement between the EU and Canada.

READ ALSO: Who is Giuseppe Conte, the political novice now Italy's populist PM?

Who is Giuseppe Conte, the political novice now Italy's populist PM?

Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP

Missed target

But according to Nick Ottens of the Atlantic Council, Trump “may not find the ally he expects” in Conte.

On trade, the new Italian government's skepticism of multinational agreements risks Trump's goal of eliminating all EU customs tariffs, according to Ottens.

Meanwhile, in the defense realm, Italy has said it has no chance of reaching the target spending of two percent of GDP — let alone Trump's stated goal of four percent at the latest NATO summit.

In early July, Italy's defense minister Elisabetta Trenta announced a freeze on purchasing F-35 fighter aircraft, of which the US is the primary contractor.

Italy's participation in NATO operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria will be on both leaders' agendas, along with Italy's diplomatic efforts in Libya.

But a certain point of disagreement will be Trump's standoff with Iran — and the sanctions that hurt Italian-Iranian commercial relations.

By Sylvie Lanteaume

EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

SHOW COMMENTS