Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday (4 January) called the eurozone’s bailout fund “obsolete”, saying Italy’s failure to ratify a reform of the system was an opportunity to make it “more efficient”.

MPs in the lower house of parliament last month rejected a motion to ratify the 2021 reform of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which strengthened the fund’s financial firepower and increased its authority to supervise countries in difficulty.

Italy thus remains the only European Union country not to ratify the treaty, which cannot be implemented without approval by all national parliaments.

Answering a question at the traditional end-of-year press conference how her hard-right government would respond, Meloni said there had never been a majority in the Italian parliament for ratification, and the ESM was an “obsolete” tool.

“Perhaps Italy’s failure to ratify the treaty could become an opportunity to turn it into something more effective than it is today,” she told reporters.

“In my opinion, this is the direction in which the government should work.”

Meloni’s government was split on the 21 December ratification motion put forward by the centre-left opposition.

Her post-Fascist Brothers of Italy party voted against it, as did the far-right League of her deputy premier, Matteo Salvini.

But the third party in their governing coalition, the right-wing Forza Italia of the late Silvio Berlusconi, abstained.

Created in 2012 in the heat of the eurozone debt crisis, the ESM borrows on the financial markets to provide loans at below-market rates to eurozone states in difficulty, who must in return implement reforms to their public finances.

Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Cyprus have all used it but Italy remains deeply suspicious, with many considering it a tool for Northern
European countries to impose austerity on the south.

There are also fears in Italy that if it used the ESM, it would be forced to restructure its enormous debt.

In December 2022, Meloni said she would “sign in blood” that Italy would not join the ESM.

G7 Presidency

Supporting African development and tackling the dangers posed by artificial intelligence (AI) will be two key themes for Italy during its one-year presidency of the Group of Seven, Meloni told journalists.

Meloni added that Italy would maintain its support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and warned that a further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East could have “unimaginable consequences”.

Italy took over the rotating presidency of the G7, which includes the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy, at the start of January.

It will host numerous ministerial meetings throughout the year, including a leaders’ summit in June. However, Meloni said she wanted to hold a special session before June focused on AI.

“I am hugely concerned about the impact (of AI) on the labour market,” she told the news conference to mark the end of the year, held over from last month when she was unwell.

“Today we are faced with a revolution where (human) intellect is in danger of being replaced.”

She told reporters that supporting African development would also be a central theme of her G7, saying it was vital to boost local economies and living standards to dissuade would-be migrants from heading to Europe.

“What I think needs to be done in Africa is not charity. What needs to be done in Africa is to build cooperation and serious strategic relationships as equals not predators. What needs to be done in Africa is to defend the right not to have to emigrate … and this is done with investments and a strategy.”

War on the agenda

Among other issues likely to dominate Italy’s presidency is the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Meloni called on Israel to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza and said that a more permanent solution needed to be found for the Palestinian issue.

“I believe…it’s an error to say ‘First let’s destroy Hamas and then we’ll talk about it’,” Meloni said.

“One of the best ways of calling the bluff of Hamas, which has no interest in the Palestinian cause, is to work for a structural solution of the Palestinian question,” she added, saying the European Union should play a more prominent role in diplomatic initiatives.

Meloni, who took power in October 2022 as Italy’s first woman prime minister, said she believed that the West should continue to supply arms and material support to Kyiv.

“The only way to reach any kind of diplomatic solution in Ukraine, any kind of negotiation, is to maintain the balance between forces on the ground.”

Gun accident

At the same presser, Meloni said she recommended that a lawmaker involved in an accident with a gun on New Year’s Eve should be suspended from her party.

Meloni had faced opposition calls to punish Emanuele Pozzolo, a lawmaker from her Brothers of Italy party, after a bystander was injured when a gun belonging to him went off at a New Year celebration.

Meloni said she had recommended the suspension pending an investigation of Pozzolo’s conduct by a Brothers of Italy committee.

Italian prosecutors are also investigating Pozzolo, who has denied firing the mini-revolver himself.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

Source: Euractiv.com