Democracies threatened by autocracies (and what does Italy do?). Debate in the Senate

It is the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it is also the day when, at the UN, the US votes like Russia against the territorial integrity of the invaded country. What is Europe doing? The question is crossing the old continent in the aftermath of the German elections and also runs through the Italian parliamentary halls where, from right to left, people are reasoning about the attitude of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni after Donald Trump's victory: has it changed? Must it change, in one direction or another, while the old continent is gripped by autocracies? And, while the facade of Palazzo Madama lights up with the colors of the Ukrainian flag to remember February 24, 2022, the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa sends his greetings to the event organized by Centro Popolare for the presentation of Maurizio Molinari's book "The new war against democracies - how autocracies want to overturn the international order" (ed.Rizzoli). La Russa is not sending himself, as initially thought, due to another concomitant institutional commitment on a sports theme in the north (Milan-Cortina 2026), and the hope for a constructive discussion on a theme "of great relevance for the entire West" rests on the speakers, some of whom are directly involved in the new dark hour for the Western front (Winston Churchill is the stone guest, cited and regretted): the Ukrainian ambassador to Rome Yaroslav Melnyk and the Israeli ambassador Jonathan Peled; the former president of the Chamber and Democratic senator Pierferdinando Casini; the leader of the FdI group in the Senate Lucio Malan, the parliamentarians of Noi moderateti-Centro popolare Mariastella Gelmini, Mara Carfagna and Giusy Versace. And it is precisely the ambassadors who express their concern. “Bitter awareness,” Melnyk will say: awareness of a possible extension of the crisis from the Black Sea to the Arctic Circle, awareness of the fact that, as time passes, democracies are not able to “respond symmetrically and immediately” to the danger that threatens them. European countries need a “more decisive” step, he says, and rights “are not slogans for school books.” Europe is once again called into question, when the Israeli ambassador speaks of October 7 as an “attack on the entire West” by those who want to create instability in all democratic countries with a “multifaceted” war, and Molinari recalls that democracies under attack can decide whether to “fight, negotiate or surrender,” but autocracies “certainly will not change their direction.” The issue concerns the center-left and center-right. And if Malan brings the discussion to a relatively safe ground from anti-Melon polemics (“in the Seventies we already saw autocracies at work”, and the solution found revolved around preventing them from uniting”, which is why now seeing them united should raise some doubts about the mistakes made by the West), Casini aims straight at European defense (go and tell that to some allies of the Democratic Party and even to some areas of the Democratic Party itself): common defense is an “urgent” necessity, “deterrence forces” are needed, but the bill cannot be paid by the US alone. Mara Carfagna, in inviting the EU to “become a state”, thinks of the Middle East: “There is no Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is a brutal aggression carried out by a terrorist organization, Hamas, against a free, democratic and civil state” and “it would be appropriate for the United Nations, instead of constantly targeting Israel, to promote the creation of an international coalition to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the Middle East”. Mariastella Gelmini fears that a Europe “without vision” is destined for marginalization: “The Union did an extraordinary job in the time of Covid”, says Gelmini, and “first it guaranteed peace on our continent, it stood by Ukraine without hesitation from the very beginning and with two different governments and with funding overall similar to that of the United States. But it has no influence on the solution to critical events. Today, those who really want to defend the EU must fight for a leap forward and to recover a vision. It can only do so if it decides to give itself a common foreign policy and a common defense, and if it moves away from the extemporaneous dimension and the illusions of grandeur of individual states”. In the meantime, the beacon is the path “clearly indicated by Mario Draghi": “We must worry about growing our economies, streamlining bureaucracy, investing the resources needed, helping businesses”.

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