Climate and energy issues came, literally by storm, into Italy’s September 25 parliamentary election campaign, which analysts heard by Lusa said targeted the “ambiguities” of the right.
After the violent floods that left 11 dead and two disappeared in the Marche region last week, outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi warned that the “fragility” of the hydrogeological risk that has existed “for centuries” in some parts of the country is “a climate change emergency.” .”
To Lusa, Ilario Lombardo, political journalist for the newspaper La Stampastressed that the parties putting climate issues at the top of the agenda are the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party (PD), which have joined forces within the center-left coalition with the environmentalist Green Party.
According to Lombardo, the parties are taking “a pragmatic approach” dictated by the pandemic and war that forced them to “postpone issues that were a priority”. “Climate change is a topic that seems to unite everyone, but does not excite anyone”Advanced.
Gianfranco Pasquino, professor of political science at the University of Bologna, said the center-left program “fully embraced the program of the Draghi government, which has already earmarked money for the ecological transition.”
As for centre-right, he said: “he was never an environmentalist and in his programs we only see general indications”.
The energy crisis and rising commodity prices are prompting Italy to look for alternative sources for Russian gas. All the analysts interviewed by Lusa agree that the war in Ukraine has made it more difficult to abandon gas as the country’s main energy source.
“Italy has no energy autonomy, so today the debate has shifted to internal gas production, drilling, installing regasifiers and buying gas from countries other than Russia. Of course, even the five-star movement, which has been very critical of some projects, such as the Tap [Trans-Adriático ligando Itália a países produtores da Ásia Central]even today he cannot immediately say ‘no to gas’ because he knows it is a totally unwise position”Lombardo added.
The heated debate over climate and energy degraded discussion about Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy (FdI, for its acronym in Italian) party prominently leads voting intentions, about that formation’s ties to Italian post-fascism, and still on suspicions of Russian funding to his coalition partner, Matteo Salvini.
“It is correct that European partners ask how much Meloni got rid of his post-fascist legacy, since the FdI was born from part of the National Alliance, which in turn was born from part of the MSI that was a post-fascist party That said, the FdI was born with a liberal component represented by Guido Crosetto [fundador do partido juntamente com Meloni] which in any case has little to do with the history of fascism”Lombardo told Lusa.
However, what confuses those trying to analyze this party is the “ambiguity” of Giorgia Meloni’s behavior and statements and, “in your alliances, [Meloni] often meets with parties we would call post-fascists”said the reporter.
“For example, his choice to take the stage of Vox, a Spanish post-Franco, anti-abortion and minority rights party, is a way of seducing a right-wing electorate that nostalgic and folkloric evokes post-fascist ideas at the same time – and this is the real ambiguity – [Meloni] tries to clean up his image by underlining his Euro-Atlantic and Europeanist positions”said Lombardo.
For analysts heard by Lusa, despite Meloni’s ambiguities, if he wins the election, he should not be subject to the influence of fascist currents in government.
“For electoral purposes, it is understandable that the Democratic Party emphasizes this risk, but I think it is exaggerated and perhaps even counterproductive.”said Pasquino.
The Italian election campaign, in which opposition to European sanctions against Russia divides the far-right coalition and the Democratic Party (left) and allies, has also been rocked in recent days by revelations from anonymous sources in US intelligence, quoted by the press, that Russia has been $300 million has been invested in funding politicians in more than 20 countries in Europe, Africa and South Asia “to try to influence local politics”.
With old suspicions about the League, outgoing prime minister himself, Mario Draghi, said on Friday that he had raised the question of whether or not there was any information about Italians involved with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said in a phone call. . between them that “Italy is not on this list”.
Source: DN
