Ukraine, who has seen Meloni? The Italian PM reduced to a walk-on, USA and EU leave her on the bench

Not going in person to the Kiev summit last weekend and limiting her participation to an online connection was a mistake for Giorgia Meloni and at this point everyone has realized it, even at Palazzo Chigi. Yesterday, US Secretary of State Rubio called the leaders of Ukraine, the UK, France, Germany and Poland, the countries present in Kiev, and the European High Commissioner Kallas to discuss the situation that was perhaps one step away from the final push in one direction or another. Giorgia's phone remained silent. Luckily for her, the Italian Prime Minister had had the foresight to postpone the meeting with Slovakian Prime Minister Fico to June 3. Otherwise, the desolate picture would have been that of an Italian Prime Minister meeting with her counterpart from a minor country, considered to be Putinist, while everyone else was discussing the heart of the crisis at a decisive moment.

Today the Prime Minister will face Prime Minister's time in the Chamber and we can be sure that all the opposition will blame her for having made Italy, the third country of the Union, superfluous, cut off from decisive meetings and discussions . It is obvious that the opposition in Italy is leveraging her mistake but even more painful is the unscrupulous use that Macron is making of it, determined to relegate the Italian to the bench. Relations between the two, never positive, have returned to an all-time low. The clamorous error of political judgment is easily explained. Meloni wanted to participate in the summit so as not to be accused of having split the unity not only of the Union but of the whole of Europe. However, she also wanted to keep a safe distance to signal in practice her otherness with respect to the "Willing" who are preparing to organize a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, after the possible truce, in which Italy does not intend to participate. He also believed that the bellicosity of the main European countries and of the same commission was on a collision course with Trump's position. He aimed to stay, as always, at the center and to stage this position plastically by participating, yes, but without getting directly involved by attending the summit in person.

When, two days before the appointment, the Italians realized that the first concrete hypothesis of a truce would be on the table and that Trump and Europe would at least for the moment march side by side, the Prime Minister lacked the readiness to immediately go back on her decision. The result, however, is that Italy is now excluded both from the group that has already agreed on the lines of European Defense, the so-called "Weimar Format" composed of Germany, France and Poland, and from the coalition of the Willing and therefore from the management of the negotiations on the truce today. Inevitable, then, is the weight that this marginalization will have on the division of the appetizing cake constituted by the reconstruction of Ukraine, once the war is over. At the origin of the trouble is actually the lack of support from Donald Trump who was generous with compliments, as he always does when he thinks it suits him, but without at all assigning to Italy, at least for now, that role of privileged interlocutor and director of the dialogue between the US and the EU that Meloni was aiming for. Being in the middle, as she has chosen to do, can mean becoming a precious bridge but it can also end in complete isolation and for now this seems to be the case with Meloni.

To break the siege, Palazzo Chigi is now focusing above all on direct dialogue with German Chancellor Merz. On Sunday, she will be in Rome for the enthronement of Leo XIV, a direct meeting will almost certainly take place and on several points the understanding between the two countries has already been verified in the phone call two days ago. Giorgia also hopes that at the last moment Trump himself will decide to show up at the ceremony, while for now only his deputy Vance is expected to be present. If the hint of a truce does not collapse in the coming days, it could be the occasion for a new diplomatic carousel like the one that, on the occasion of Bergoglio's funeral, started the thaw between Trump and Zelensky. But to truly escape from isolation and therefore superfluity, Giorgia should probably review the strategy on which she had focused and which is proving to be a failure.

FROM

David Romoli