In an interview with Corriere della Sera, former Italian Prime Minister and current leader of the M5S party Giuseppe Conte defended the 2019 Italy-China memorandum on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), signed by his government, in view of recent events. “I signed the Silk Road [Memorandum] after having convinced the Chinese to accept principles they had never underwritten before,” Conte said. “Parity of conditions, environmental and financial sustainability—without challenging the alliance with the U.S.A.; on the contrary, I reassured them [the Americans] that this was a necessary step to open a broader market to our producers. Today, due to Trump’s errors, the U.S. is scarcely reliable and risks having China appear more reasonable. A nice paradox.”
Commenting on Conte’s statements, BRI memorandum author Michele Geraci wrote on X: “The Silk Road Memorandum was one of the rare patriotic acts carried out by an Italian government in the last decades, even criticized by the so-called pro-Italy sovereignists Meloni, Tajani and Salvini, who have cut the legs off our SMEs [small and medium enterprises].”
The Meloni government, under pressure from Washington, pulled out of the Memorandum in 2024 with the false claim that it had failed its purpose, as Italy’s exports had not increased. Evidence shows that instead, Italian exports did increase as compared to Germany and France, despite the COVID-19 crisis.
