Tajani’s ‘fascists’, the halt to facial recognition (and to Mantovano). FdI is annoyed with FI

They don’t say so openly. As Fabio Rampelli, Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and one of FdI’s leading figures, told Il Foglio: “I’ve read that Tajani has already denied those statements. It’s not my habit to comment on accounts that differ from reality.” Or, as Galeazzo Bignami, the party’s leader in the Chamber of Deputies, puts it: “I didn’t hear those words, so I wouldn’t know what to say.” Yet that remark – “fascists only understand force” – which the Deputy Prime Minister is said to have made at Wednesday’s Senate meeting and which was reported in the newspapers, did not go down particularly well either in Via della Scrofa or at Palazzo Chigi. Not least because, combined with accusations levelled at the League (“we carry more weight but they’re overbearing”), it made the summit look like “an furious Tajani lashing out at everyone”. This is, in a way, the new phase of instability into which the Foreign Minister has plunged, according to the thinking within Meloni’s party. It has been exacerbated by the breach of preference voting rules in the Chamber of Deputies, but is compounded daily by fresh parliamentary setbacks.

We saw yet another example of this yesterday: the Chamber of Deputies’ EU Policies Committee has postponed issuing an opinion on the draft legislative decree transposing the European AI Act. The reason? The rapporteur for the measure, Forza Italia MP Cristina Rossello – a former lawyer for Silvio Berlusconi and very close to the family – is said to have included in the opinion the ‘concerns’ that emerged during the various hearings regarding the use of artificial intelligence for facial recognition. However, those critical issues – many of which were raised by the opposition – would not have gone down well with FdI at all, especially following the chaos that erupted in the Senate on Wednesday. That is why the opinion has been postponed until next week. “I’m certainly not a confrontational person, but a technical one. I preferred to keep my opinion as it is rather than issue a blunt one that would not have taken European legislation into account,” Rossello explained to Il Foglio. According to her, “the technical observations made point in this direction: greater consistency with the AI Regulation, clarifications on non-targeted scraping, attention to the role of the judicial authority in authorisations, an impact assessment on fundamental rights, and safeguards regarding the collection and storage of biometric data. “The aim is to establish an effective framework that serves security and investigative needs, whilst fully respecting the principles of proportionality, impartiality, data minimisation and the protection of fundamental freedoms. For this reason, the proceedings have been adjourned until next week, to allow for a thorough review of the critical issues that have emerged and to arrive at a text that is more robust from a legal and European perspective.” A delay that is said to have particularly annoyed Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, who would have preferred to conclude the matter as quickly as possible rather than postpone it for another week.” This was also to avoid giving the opposition any grounds for criticism, as they are already talking of a ‘divided majority’. Just yesterday, on this very issue, Tajani – who spoke in the Senate on the international situation – resorted to a vague ‘we will follow the European Union’s guidelines’.

But much of Meloni’s concern is obviously linked to the lack of reassurances regarding the electoral law. The group of Forza Italia senators has shown a fair inclination to boil over rather than unity. This is also why the majority’s electoral law experts (among whom will be Roberto Rosso, deputy group leader in the Senate) are due to meet between Monday and Tuesday. They are still searching for the elusive balance on preferential voting. Meanwhile, Tajani – who, in certain regions (such as Campania), is having to deal with some internal party strife – is trying to ‘fortify his position’ by organising a series of events. In August, he will meet with local authorities in Rome. Then, in September, by taking part in Forza Italia’s youth festival, ‘Azzurra Libertà’, in San Benedetto del Tronto, he will genuinely seek to deliver on the promise of a ‘vibrant election campaign’. Meanwhile, a Forza Italia event is scheduled for October, which is intended to serve as a sort of substitute for the national congress that the Berlusconi family prevented him from holding before the general election. Meloni is watching this with interest, partly to gauge how steady her Deputy Prime Minister will be during an autumn that promises to be a challenging one for the government and the majority. She is hoping that the setbacks do not pile up to the point of making it impossible to carry on.