At first it was Geography. In a letter to the Military Navy on the occasion of her annual party, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni drew an Italian Mare Nostrum that included the Balearic Islands. “You carry out a crucial function for the Nation, guaranteeing security from the Balearic Islands to the Turkish Straits,” the message said.
More than half of the Mediterranean, Italian living space. A postcard from the thirties. Let’s not exaggerate. A literary license, a nationalist pill to congratulate June 10, the date on which the Military Navy remembers the feat of Captain Luigi Rizzo, commander of an agile torpedo boat that in 1918 managed to sink the Austro-Hungarian navy cruiser San Esteban –ship Hungarian – in the Otranto channel.
Always Geography. A few days earlier, on June 1, an extraordinary summit of the European Union had been held in the Moldovan castle of Bulboaca, as a sign of support for Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. Volodímir Zelenski was the great protagonist of the meeting, competing with the news of the week: the call for early general elections in Spain. Asked about it, Prime Minister Meloni expressed in Moldova that she supported Vox, without mentioning the name of the Spanish party. Institutional caution.
That interest was translated into a fifteen-minute speech at the rally that Vox held on July 13 in the city of Valencia, to celebrate its entry into the government of the Generalitat Valenciana. The combination of the conventional right and the extreme right. Meloni’s project for European politics. The selective strategy of Manfred Weber, president of the European People’s Party: agree with parties with far-right resonance as long as they are faithful to the Atlantic Alliance.
Santiago Abascal wanted Meloni to travel to Valencia to concelebrate the success. A year earlier, the leader of the Brothers of Italy had come to Marbella to support Vox in Andalusia. Her speech, very hard, was highly commented. After a few months, she recognized that it had not been her best oratory piece. In Marbella, June 2022, Meloni was the leader of the opposition. In July 2023, she became Prime Minister. She would not go to Valencia, but she would send a video of support. A fifteen-minute video with a lot of ideological charge.
There are no written rules in the European Union on the participation of national rulers in the electoral campaigns of other countries. The usual practice is usually short support videos, without going into the local battle.
In the Valencia video, Meloni strongly attacked environmentalists, accusing them of practicing a pantheism hostile to human beings. “They defend nature and have plenty of men,” she said. The Weber experiment, the EPP’s alliance with the new patriotic right, had just suffered a setback in the first vote on the Nature Restoration law in the European Parliament. Meloni was angry. “The result of July 23 may mean a change of course in European politics. It is very important that Vox enters the Government of Spain ”, she proclaimed in Valencia. A bottom bet. Pedro Sánchez’s cabinet was taking note, but prudence was chosen. Silence.
Two days before the closing of the campaign, Alberto Núñez Feijóo presented Meloni with an offer to join the PPE in an interview with the newspaper El Mundo, reproduced in its entirety by Corriere della Sera (Both newspapers are owned by the Italian publishing group Cairo).
More things have happened between Italy and Spain in the last thirty days. At the beginning of July, the existence of talks for a large business operation after the elections in Spain came to light. It is published by El Confidencia l. The Italian Government would be willing to part with Endesa, for thirteen years in the hands of the electric company Enel, a company controlled by the Italian Treasury. Exploratory talks with Repsol, with the mediation of businessman Borja Prado, yesterday president of Endesa, today president of Mediaset España. The negotiations were formally denied by the parties. Yesterday, once the results of the elections were known, the operation was “flatly denied” by the CEO of Enel, Flavio Cattaneo, a trusted man of Prime Minister Meloni.
July 7th. Pier Silvio Berlusconi, executive vice president of the Mediaset group, owner of Telecinco in Spain, announces that he would be willing to buy the SER radio channel if the Prisa group put it up for sale. With the death of the father, the Berlusconi have to decide if they continue to supervise the Forza Italia party, affiliated with the PPE.
Exploration maneuvers are constant in the business world, but it is unusual for operations of strategic scope to be publicized two weeks before legislative elections in a neighboring country. Politics, energy, media. Someone decided to play strong in Rome. It is impossible to imagine a similar dynamic of Spanish interests in Italy.
