“We don’t come to emphasize differences, we come to weave consensus”, they warned the Spanish delegation that accompanied Pedro Sánchez to the Chigi Palace, seat of the Italian Executive, where this Thursday he held his first official meeting with Giorgia Meloni. Despite the fact that the socialist Sánchez and the far-right Meloni are at the ideological opposite ends of the political spectrum, the hour and a half meeting that they both held ended with a mutual song to the friendship between Italy and Spain, third and fourth economies, respectively, of the European Union.
After just five months as president of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, in Moncloa they observe in the leader of the post-fascist formation Brothers of Italy a clear desire for moderation in the meetings of the European Council, also with regard to the war in Ukraine or migration policy, far removed from the hard and disruptive line that Matteo Salvini promoted. Meloni, who yesterday received Sánchez with an exquisite institutional treatment, highlighting “the convergences and synergies” between the two “Mediterranean and very close countries, which understand each other even though they speak different languages”, seemed to be light years away from the leader ultra vehement that accompanied Santiago Abascal at a Vox rally in Marbella last June.
And Sánchez himself acknowledged after the meeting that he had felt very comfortable during his appointment with Meloni. Despite the fact that for years the leader of the PSOE has been warning, inside and outside of Spain, of the danger that in his opinion the irruption of the ultra-right poses to executives and European institutions, the Prime Minister avoided the ideological clash with Meloni, for put all the focus on the priorities of the semester of the Spanish presidency of the EU, which begins on July 1.
The relations between Spain and Italy, they emphasize from Moncloa, transcend their respective governments and their opposing political colors. And Sánchez claimed yesterday, after his visit to the Chigi palace, that his aim was not to confront or point out his political differences with Meloni, but to try to “weave alliances and find common ground” with the Italian prime minister , as he also did the day before in his meetings with the presidents of Cyprus and Malta – within the plan of preparatory tours of the European semester that he is leading -, to achieve progress in the various files open with a large part of his counterparts from the EU In this role, Sánchez admits that he must respect the legitimacy of all the governments of the community club, whether they are more or less similar to his political positions.
Sánchez thus found “coincidences” with Meloni not only on the redefinition of European tax rules or regarding his open strategic autonomy plan, but even in front of the thorny European pact on migration and asylum that he has as one of their top priorities. Despite the fact that the recent decree of the Italian Executive restricting the activities of humanitarian migrant rescue ships collides with the Spanish position, Sánchez highlighted the harmony between two countries that first arrived at the southern border of the EU.
“Italy and Spain share that what we have to do is talk less about the internal dimension of migration and talk more about the external dimension of migration”, he said. Border control, but also solidarity and more collaboration with the countries of origin and transit of irregular migration. The drastic reduction in flows on the Atlantic route, especially from Morocco to Spain, doubles the migratory pressure in the eastern Mediterranean. But Italy is very close to the dustbin of Libya and Tunisia.
“When Italy and Spain work together, good things happen for both societies and we make Europe move”, celebrated Sánchez in front of Meloni.
