Conte’s conditions for the broad coalition: “It must not be a mere collection of acronyms: we need a five-year plan, including on international challenges”

Giuseppe Conte’s statement sounds like an ultimatum to the centre-left: a cohesive and lasting alliance is needed, and it is needed now. “Stability has its value; I recognise that too. The person speaking has had the chance to form two governments because he did not have a stable majority; he governed for about two and a half years – a very short time,” said the leader of the Five Star Movement today at the event ‘Together for the Future of Rome and Lazio’. “We were among the most reform-minded governments, because we carried out a great many reforms, including structural ones. We left behind a country that was the driving force of Europe. However, to achieve certain things, you need a timeframe that cannot be just one or two years, and that is why you often hear me talk about a progressive project that cannot simply involve bringing together a host of acronyms, creating a conglomerate of numbers, or an aggregation of numbers. No.’ Rather, the former prime minister continued, it must be ‘a coherent project, and we must find mechanisms to truly guarantee a five-year parliamentary term, because otherwise this country will be unable to realise all these projects and this vision – and this applies to domestic law, but even more so to challenges at the international level’. For this reason, he continued, “we really hope to be able to sit down at the table because it is now truly necessary to define a national project that encompasses everything from international law and foreign policy to domestic solutions. We must focus on measures for growth and also on measures to ensure fairness.” And who will lead it? “We’ll see.” 

And speaking of the programme, one of the points on which Avs is focusing most of all is the introduction of a wealth tax. Conte, however, disagrees. “We have studied it time and again, so I would like to move beyond the ideological framework. When it has been implemented in Europe, it has never worked, because there is a problem with calculating wealth,” he said. “Secondly: the ultra-rich can easily move elsewhere. Even economists have spoken of global taxes on the ultra-rich, because they too realise that wherever such a tax has been introduced, it hasn’t worked.” Do Bonelli and Fratoianni know this? “We’ll tell them, but I’ll provide examples; I’ll bring all the documentation. I’m not taking an ideological stance at the moment,” he added.

As well as the economy, there is also coverage of foreign policy. “As far as we are concerned, we remain absolutely convinced that the way forward is not military escalation but, now more than ever – in the face of Trump’s irresponsible move regarding Russian diesel, and given that Musk is making the Starlink constellation available on alternate days – we believe there is an absolute need to bring about a shift towards negotiations in order to protect and defend the Ukrainian people as effectively as possible.” Conte said he had “hoped for progress towards reaching an agreement and finding common ground. Yesterday there was certainly a step forward, as signalled by the mutual abstentions, when discussing the resolution, including with regard to the much-debated issue of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. So I too would like to highlight this further step, which was taken through mutual abstentions. We have signalled our determination to find common ground on this issue as well,” he added. 

“If tomorrow someone were to decide to send a negotiator” for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, “and we were finally to identify that person, and let’s imagine we could conclude negotiations and reach a stable, lasting treaty, what would Germany do? Could we justify throwing money at rearmament when we have signed a treaty with our current enemy, whom we have decided we absolutely must defeat militarily? ‘Perhaps then we should change our approach,’ the M5S leader continued. ‘If we were to reach a peace plan, it would mean we’ve managed to satisfy the interests at stake, to find a compromise – whilst, of course, safeguarding Ukraine’s interests as effectively as possible, as it remains, in my view, the country under attack – and at the same time we’d also be working on a security conference,’ he added. A name for a negotiator? “I have one; the United States, Russia and China would all be happy with him, but I won’t say who it is so as not to jeopardise his chances,” concluded Conte.