The Minister of Economy, Giovanni Tria, in full agreement with the president of the ECB Mario Draghi, did not think twice before rejecting the minibots without appeal, wanted by the League and a little less by the Five Stars. Tria spoke on the sidelines of the G20 held in Japan but the responses of Matteo Salvini and Di Maio were not long in coming, they were so obvious.
In fact, in this latest comedy within an increasingly shaky government, the real stakes are not the minibots, which even Lega and Cinque Stelle know very well they cannot transform into reality because they would violate international treaties or increase the already appalling public debt.
The goal, not so disguised, of Salvini and Di Maio is another: to warn not only Tria but above all Prime Minister Conte - with whom the deputy prime ministers will hold a summit meeting tomorrow at Palazzo Chigi in view of Tuesday's Council of Ministers - That they can't think they have free hands in the negotiation with the EU to avoid the infringement procedure.
But if even the meek Northern League undersecretary to the Presidency, Giancarlo Giorgetti, starts defending the minibots in front of the Young Industrialists audience, it's clear as day that the goal is all political. Lega and Cinque Stelle warn Tria and Conte but they also speak to Europe in view of the division of seats within the European Commission in the first place but also at the top of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, not to mention the ECB.
As it was easy to imagine, the Italian sovereigns won at home in the last European elections but they count for nothing in Europe. Salvini has already been snubbed by Orban and from the countries of the Visegrad bloc and the Five Stars are even looking for a European group in which to marry after Alde and Verdi have already let it be known that they do not think in the slightest of welcoming them.
Lega and Cinque Stelle would like to bring home a weighty EU Commissioner – Industry or Competition, as Giorgetti said yesterday – but it is clear that, after putting their fingers in the eyes of their main European partners, both France and Germany have no intention to give gifts to a country at risk of infringement for breach of EU rules on public debt. Here because Salvini and Di Maio shout to the moon but the chances of being left empty-handed are rising by the hour.