As soon as Volodymyr Zelenskyy left Rome after his talks with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pope Leo XIV on Dec. 9, Lega head and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini zeroed in on further aid to Kiev. “This war has already cost $300 billion, and Trump has already said that he won’t be putting up another penny next year,” argued Salvini. Continuing to support the Ukrainian resistance would therefore cost Europe “€140 billion. And I’m not going to take money away from Italian healthcare to fund a war that is already lost.”
Salvini’s position is opposed in the government by coalition partner Forza Italia, led by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Tajani has an opposite view and is said to be ready to pull the plug on the three-party coalition government coalition (Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, Lega, and Forza Italia), if Meloni gives in to Salvini’s “sovereignist” demands.
Salvini has also shared Trump’s criticism of the EU. “I imagine Trump’s criticism is not directed at citizens, i.e., Italians, Germans, Spaniards, but at the top, at the European bureaucracy, which I too have been criticizing for years, without waiting for Trump. They are the ones who impose insane rules on us about boilers, fireplaces, mopeds, and vans,” he said during a live connection with Rete 4 TV.
