Conte visits universities and looks to the BRICS. Licheri: “A multipolar approach is needed”. Round-table discussion on Kyiv with the PD on Thursday

Rome. “I am a pacifist, but not an anti-militarist,” Giuseppe Conte tells students from Campania. He presents his book and answers questions. The former prime minister is increasingly convinced of the need for a new approach that goes beyond the current system. More Lula, less United States? Ettore Licheri explains to Il Foglio: “There is a world order that is being reshaped; the old alliances will be abandoned to make way for a multipolar era. It is not just a question of East and West; you cannot divide everything into good and bad,” says the vice-president of the M5S, who flew to China last month, where he also met representatives of Xi Jinping’s party. “But I have also been to Japan and South Korea. We, first and foremost,” he adds, “must engage in diplomacy to learn about other social, economic and political models.” This is the perspective from which Conte will address the BRICS summit on the 27th, and with which the Five Star Movement members will likely also approach the thematic meetings on the party programme, which began yesterday with ‘The South and inland areas’ and ‘Information, culture and sport’. In particular, Thursday’s session (with Giuseppe Provenzano leading the charge for the PD and the M5S group leaders for the M5S) is set to feature, according to the timetable released by the opposition, the most eagerly awaited – and most contentious – round-table discussion, which also concerns Ukraine and is summarised under the heading: “Peace, Europe, foreign policy, common defence”. Meanwhile, yesterday the M5S leader set out to win over young people, returning to the lecture hall for a double engagement at the universities of Benevento and Salerno. This tour will continue over the coming weeks – with three events in Rome scheduled for Tuesday 17th – and is also useful in the run-up to the primaries. After speaking to the students, Conte launched a scathing attack on Meloni and her government, “which plans to squander 14 billion on weapons whilst the health service is struggling”. Looking to the future, at Palazzo Chigi, the former prime minister went on to explain that military action is indeed “inevitable”, but that “politics must lead us towards horizons of peace”. And not, it is implied, to send more weapons to Kyiv. It is also a signal to the Democrats. “I’ll come to what I would like to do in the wake of the government’s inauguration: Italy,” continued Conte, “must be a promoter of peace conferences and disarmament plans”. The thrust of his argument is that we cannot entrench ourselves within NATO against the rest of the world. This also applies to his (online) participation in the BRICS forum – which includes countries such as Russia, Iran, Brazil and China – dedicated to artificial intelligence. Conte is billed as a professor of private law, but the political significance of the initiative is certainly not lost on anyone. "The so-called emerging economies are commercial and financial partners with whom we must, at the very least, engage in dialogue. The Germans and the French are doing so too, and they are perhaps freer from ideology than we are," Licheri explains, recalling how the M5S had already attempted something similar with the "Silk Road". “But it wasn’t just Trump who stood in the way. France and Germany did too.” And if “national economies are no longer sufficient, as they were in the 20th century”, an answer may come from the East. If nothing else, in the field of artificial intelligence, as a counterweight to American big tech. “We cannot simply follow in the wake of the United States; Italy,” says Licheri, “can regain its central role.” How? “By developing AI on a national basis. There are open-source systems coming from China and India which, subject to appropriate checks, offer guarantees of security and independence. We have centres of excellence in the universities of the south that possess the necessary know-how; they just need to be given the right conditions.” Further topics for the working groups: the session on artificial intelligence is scheduled for next Monday as part of a two-hour discussion that will also cover “the economy, tax justice, industrial policy and innovation, tourism and growth strategy”. The following day – that is, the 17th, when the preliminary phase on the programme will conclude – it will be the turn of “Justice, the fight against organised crime and security”. It is therefore no coincidence that this latter topic is being addressed in a different session from that on immigration, and is instead paired with rights and democracy. The broad coalition has clarified in a statement that “the work of the working groups does not constitute the entirety of the programme-drafting phase”. It will be up to the leaders to “draw conclusions” – and also to decide whether, and how, to further broaden the scope. A request to this effect came yesterday from Vincenzo Spadafora, as he presented the programme of the “Primavera” movement. He had first organised a flash mob at the Nazareno, although Schlein was not there to welcome him. “But I had a long, face-to-face meeting with her on Sunday – to whom I extend my thanks – which was very fruitful.” The ball is now in Conte and Avs’ court.

Ruggiero Montenegro