Italian PM Mario Draghi might find no government when he returns home from his visit to Joe Biden today. In fact, as Biden might ask Draghi for more weaponry to Ukraine, Draghi’s Parliament majority has flipped, now being against new weapons to Kiev.
Whereas Draghi’s earlier decision to send weapons was approved by Parliament, the originally tiny opposition has now become the majority. Originally, only the radical left and small groups within the M5S, the Lega, and the Democratic Party (PD) itself opposed the decision. However, since the Pope’s statements against NATO, the situation has radically changed. The M5S, led by former PM Giuseppe Conte, and the Lega, led by Matteo Salvini, are now publicly against new weapon shipments and for a peace negotiation. The opposition within the PD, led by former minister Graziano Delrio, has grown to the point that the pro-NATO PD leadership has now shifted, simply in order not to lose control.
Remarkably, the shift is dramatized by a character that EIR veteran readers know well — financier Carlo De Benedetti, believed to be the oligarch who created Italy’s Democratic Party. In a long interview with Corriere della Sera, De Benedetti called for decoupling Italian (that is, EU) foreign policy from the Washington-London axis; and he even warned of the consequences of the looming food crisis. Millions of refugees will invade Italy from Africa, he said, preferring the risk of drowning in the Mediterranean against the certainty of dying through starvation.
As if on queue, PD secretary general Enrico Letta gave an interview to the same newspaper, crying out: “Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Poland must move now, united, for peace. Go to Kiev first and meet Putin afterwards. We must not let the US lead us. Europe has grown up. This war is in Europe and Europe must stop it.” Overall, it represents quite a remarkable shift.
Parliament demanded that Draghi brief Parliament before going to Washington; however, he did not do so. If he does it on his return, he will face a majority on paper which will reject anything Biden might have asked him. This does not necessarily mean that the government will fall; it might survive as a zombie. Political creativity is limitless in Italy.
In Draghi’s first public comments today at the White House and to President Biden, he usefully reflected his awkward situation with the combination of a plea and an outburst: “We stand together in condemning the invasion of Ukraine, on sanctioning Russia, and on helping Ukraine, as President Zelenskyy is asking us to do. But I have to tell you that in Italy and in Europe now, people want to put an end to this massacres— to these massacres, to this violence, this butchery that’s happening. And people think about what can we do to bring peace. We certainly have to use any direct, indirec- — indirect channel of communication. But is that enough? What can we do? People think that — at least they want to think about the possibility of bringing a ceasefire and starting again some credible negotiations. That’s the situation right now. I think that we have to think deeply on how to address this.”
