The new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will be present, like other Heads of State and Government, at the enthronement of Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican but the occasion will also be good to meet the Italian Prime Minister at Palazzo Chigi Giorgia Meloni, as will happen today. Our Prime Minister will try to fix the image of a leader who, out of personal antipathy towards the French President Emmanuel Macron, risks isolating itself from the founding countries of the EU and proving to be increasingly Eurosceptic, as happened yesterday at the Tirana Summit which he did not want to participate. But, beyond the international political etiquette to which the German Chancellor will certainly adhere, there is no need to have too many illusions about his visit to Rome because before our eyes a half revolution is taking place in Europe. What is happening is that – beyond the traditional Franco-German axis – the leading role played by the Britain of the Labour Party Keir Starmer (even if it is outside the EU) and the Poland by Donald Tusk with the exclusion or self-exclusion of Italy and Giorgia Meloni from the summits that count.
Giorgia Meloni's Italy is isolating itself from the Europe that counts
Why is all this happening? Because the centre-right Italy and in particular Prime Minister Meloni, fearing the electoral competition of the leader of the League Matteo Salvini, has ended up assuming an ambiguous role towards Europe, starting from the failure to ratify the Month. The other countries, and especially the strongest, have understood this and have no intention of giving us any discounts. All bad towards Italy? Come on, you can't be so naive. The truth, as an old proverb says, is that those who cause their own misfortune have only themselves to blame.
Merz has not yet given the impression of considering Italy a reliable country and has not hidden his preference for Poland among the countries he considers strategic: like Macron, the German Chancellor also thinks that the forces that should lead Europe are Germany, France, Poland and – outside the EU – Great Britain. Only on the fight against illegal migration did Merz appreciate Meloni's Albanian model. But that's not enough to bring us back among the greats.
