It was not easy for Antonio Tajani to mend relations with the president of the EPP Manfred Weber, after the frost with Forza Italia that fell yesterday due to the decision to cancel an event of the European People’s Party in Naples, scheduled for June, due to the recent words of Silvio Berlusconi on Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky. He summit which, also for logistical reasons, cannot be reconvened soon, but which could possibly return to the agenda only in the autumn.
The foreign minister and blue coordinator had to leverage all his patience and diplomatic skills and weave a lot of thread to convince the leader of the European People’s Party, naturally being able to put on the table the fact that “Fi has always voted both in the European Parliament and in the Italian one in defense of the rights of Ukraine, in favor of sending military aid”. And reiterating that “our position will not change, in order to arrive at a just peace”.
Words that have reassured Weber, who, for his part, would have ensured that friendship and personal relationship with Berlusconi are out of the question. However, in an equally frank manner, he allegedly underlined that the ex premier’s words nonetheless created disappointment, especially in the exponents of the Baltic countries, thus making the decision to cancel the Naples summit inevitable. A choice that arrived so suddenly also for organizational reasons, given that the terms linked to the options for hotel reservations expired just yesterday.
For the same logistical reasons, it is difficult to immediately put a new meeting in the Neapolitan city on the agenda. Furthermore, other steps will be needed to understand if the incident can actually be considered closed as stated by Tajani.
Surely a first testing ground will take place in the next few days, when a meeting could take place between the MEPs of Forza Italia and Weber himself. And the head of the blue delegation, Fulvio Martusciello, has already launched a challenge to the EPP leader, inviting him to commit himself to having Naples indicated as the secondary headquarters of the European Maritime Safety Agency.
And if in the various steps the rift is definitively recomposed, it is not excluded that the planned and canceled summit in the Campania city could be re-proposed in the autumn.
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