The leader of the League proposes to dedicate 30,000 million to mitigate high gas prices, but the candidate of the Brothers of Italy stops him in order not to increase the extremely high public debt
Although there are still ten days left before the general elections in Italy, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini are already beginning to show differences about what they would have to do when they come to power, as the polls predict. The respective leaders of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI, Brothers of Italy) and the League, bastions of the conservative bloc together with Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi’s party, know that they have everything in hand to take the reins of the next government and are beginning to set your priorities.
The problem is that Salvini’s ideas on how to deal with the energy price emergency do not coincide with Meloni’s. While he proposes to dedicate 30,000 million euros in aid to families and companies as soon as possible, she prefers to negotiate structural measures with the rest of the countries of the European Union without increasing the skyrocketing Italian public debt.
The discussion could be a preview of what would happen if the League and FdI finally manage to form a government: they would do so in a very negative economic scenario, since the Fitch agency announced this Thursday that the GDP will fall by 0.7% in 2023. Another forecast Negative came from Concommercio, the employers’ association of trade companies, which warned that during the first half of next year some 120,000 companies could close, according to an “extremely prudent” estimate of the impact that the energy crisis may have, triggered inflation and the rise in interest rates.
Cracking nerves
Salvini faces the next elections with raw nerves, the results of which could turn into a nightmare for him. The latest polls predict that the League will achieve around 12% of the vote, almost three times less than the result obtained in the 2019 European elections, when it exceeded 34%. In these last three years he has seen how FdI was eating the ground until he was ahead of him in voting intentions and was even able to double the League in the next appointment with the polls. Given this situation, Salvini tries to gain visibility against Meloni’s push. His latest attempt has been the promise to allocate 30,000 million euros immediately to help families and companies face high gas prices.
“I’m sorry that Giorgia, with whom I agree with everything, says no. The problem is that we risk losing a million jobs. Businesses are closing here. The factories are leaving the workers in their homes and the restaurants and families can’t take it anymore, “said Salvini, who wants these aids to be financed without worrying about the deficit and even if the public debt has to be increased. This exceeds 150% of GDP in Italy, one of the highest levels in developed countries. Salvini assured that he “does not understand the prudence” of the FdI leader. “She tells me to wait for more complex reforms and to wait for Europe. But if Europe falls asleep, what do we do? Fire a million workers?
Meloni has blamed her ally in the conservative bloc for being “more controversial with her than with opponents” of other ideologies. «The price of gas rises because speculation increases and if we don’t stop it, the 30,000 million euros would not be enough. It is not true that he is waiting for Europe. I have asked for the price of gas to be decoupled from that of other forms of energy. I don’t understand the controversy,” said the FdI leader. Berlusconi, the third in discord in the conservative bloc and whose party could touch 8% of the votes, also considered that “it can be avoided” to increase the public debt, something that in his opinion supposes “an extreme measure that we must do everything possible to avoid”.
#Cracks #electoral #alliance #Salvini #Meloni