Meloni writes to Antonio Costa: “Europe must speak with one voice on Ukraine”

"By projecting the image of a Europe in disarray, we are simply playing into the hands of those who want this war to continue. And I think this is unacceptable, given that human lives and the future of our security are at stake.” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has written to the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa: the purpose of the letter is to reiterate the need for Europe to speak with one voice on the Ukrainian issue and to call for a commitment on this matter to be formalised at the next European Council meeting in December. The letter is expected to preview the firm stance the Prime Minister intends to adopt on 12 and 13 November in Dublin, as Il Foglio reported today, when heads of state and government gather for the informal European Council. The Prime Minister, according to Carmelo Caruso, promises that she will “lose her temper” with Europe – a Europe that has failed to appoint an envoy to negotiate with Putin and which, as a result, risks becoming “irrelevant” in the negotiation process. 

“I am compelled to return to an issue I have raised on several occasions in the European Council,” Meloni writes today. “I am referring to the need for Europe to speak with one voice on the Ukrainian issue. A need that can no longer be put off.” The Prime Minister reviews some of the incidents that demonstrate how the European Union is proceeding in a disorganised manner in its attempt to manage the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year. From the ‘informal’ meeting in Miami between the national security advisers of several European states to the phone call from Finnish President Stubb and Prime Minister Støre to Vladimir Putin, to name just a few of the most recent examples. Initiatives which, according to the Italian Prime Minister, make the EU appear ‘unreliable’ and condemn it to ‘irrelevance’. 

Meloni is keen to make her position clear. “I am putting these words in writing, Antonio, because I want it to be on record that I will not go along with this dynamic, nor do I intend to stand by and watch whilst it plays out.” And whilst, on the one hand, attention is focused on the negotiations and the future of Ukraine, on the other there is the domestic aspect of the talks. “We are not prepared to accept that commitments – which our nation too will then be called upon to honour – are being negotiated in the absence of a mandate,” writes the Prime Minister. 

The request is as follows: “Let it be decided once and for all who sits at the negotiating table representing the European Union, and with what mandate.” With one clarification: “I am not asking for a seat for Italy in this or that format. Far from it: if it makes my request more credible, I am prepared to say that I am not asking for this role, either for myself or for Italy.”