4d ago

Giorgia Meloni rejects ‘childish’ choice between Trump and Europe

www.ft.com

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni rejects ‘childish’ choice between Trump and Europe

Giorgia Meloni has dismissed the idea that Italy will have to choose sides between the US and Europe as “childish” and “superficial”, insisting she would do whatever is necessary to defend her country’s interests.

In her first interview with a foreign newspaper since coming to office in 2022, the Italian prime minister said it was “in the interests of everyone” to overcome severe strains in the transatlantic relationship, describing some European leaders’ reactions to Donald Trump as “a bit too political”.

Italy’s nationalist conservative leader made clear she did not see the US president as an adversary and she would continue to respect Italy’s “first ally”.

archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20250328053317/https://www.ft.com/content/96d02345-1079-47d0-b208-1e80bcedf684

13 comments

@zaxvenz kinda common among European conservatives. They all act like everything's business as usual and we can still rely on the US and the West still has a collective voice. Here in Romania basically everyone is interpreting the White House administration's policies as a good thing (edit: or at least fairly justified). They'll be in for a surprise in the next 4 years.
- Very much this... Honestly, we should've rebranded to Romerica starting with the 90s given just how much we have been blindly following their lead...
  And I'm not saying this as an insult to America, believe it or not, as this very thing stands as an insult to our nation's entire history. Ffs, even our anthem has been telling us to go our own way!
  Edit: the current turmoil would be the perfect opportunity to split from these sickly influences and to finally establish ourselves as a European nation (idealistically, not... realistically, so to speak...). We'd have so much to offer if we'd just replace the people and systems which are in place exclusively to syphon money from our country with people and systems which would function with the sole interest of developing the country itself for the benefit of the citizenry.
  And by this I mean pretty much the exact opposite of what Trump's doing. We need people. We've been losing great minds left and right because living in this place is such a fucking needless headache 75% of the time, we need to change that. And we need to make this place welcoming instead of tightening the belt like idiots...
  This whole economic downfall has never been a Right or Left-Wing issue, it's been a "shitheads are running the game for their own interests" issue...
  
  @latenightnoir well, we needed a landmark and the US was there for us right as we left communism. However we mostly failed to internalize its values and we kept things going even after joining the EU. Most of the European values seem like they're more at home in the Western Europe (France, Germany, Austria, BeNeLux, the Scandinavian countries, hell, even the UK) than in Eastern Europe and in particular in Romania (can't really tell about how our former Warsaw pact neighbors are doing).
  For most of the population (except most of the richer and educated class in the bigger cities), America is the land of the brave, home of the free, the land of all possibilities that they see in those cheap Hollywood movies they see on TV every evening.

13 comments