On the Ukrainian crisis, Meloni tries to form an axis with Starmer to block Macron's idea on EU troops

Bills & bayonets. Giorgia Meloni is on the move on the diplomatic front after the stormy G7 on Ukraine. The prime minister's agenda is starting to fill up: this morning she will participate via video link in the meeting called by the president of the European Council Antonio Costa to hear from French president Emmanuel Macron the report of yesterday's meeting with Donald Trump. On Sunday she will go to London to see British prime minister Keir Starmer. In the midst of these winds of war, the prime minister is worried about the high cost of bills. The Council of Ministers that was cancelled and postponed until Friday is emblematic. The measure – drawn up by the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti – was not satisfactory in the eyes of the Prime Minister, torn between foreign and domestic policy, worried about consensus for the acts that truly interest Italians. Unlike the war which, as she has been repeating for some time, “has tired public opinion”. Imagine now that the matter has come to the fore with the debate on sending Italian troops to support Zelensky. Topics to be treated with kid gloves, so much so that yesterday the Undersecretary Giovanbattista Fazzolari, custodian of the Melonian verb, said that sending Western troops to Ukraine as an interposition force after a peace agreement is a hypothesis that France has supported for some time, but that Italy does not consider the most effective solution. Since there has never been, according to Fazzolari, an international interposition force between two armies of this size, on both sides there are more than a million armed soldiers "and I don't see clearly what the interposition force between these two armies is". A mission under the aegis of the UN, with the US also involved, would be a different matter. This is the hypothesis that Meloni and Tajani discussed after the G7 during a restricted summit. And so the prime minister will fly to London on Sunday - with Minister Guido Crosetto - to Starmer, British prime minister and leader of the Labour Party for a summit with EU countries, convened by Polish prime minister Donald Tusk. It will be an opportunity to relaunch a European defense bank, but also, from Meloni's perspective, to consolidate an axis with UK diplomacy. Which, in short, blocks Macron's rush forward with the concept of no solitary initiative on Ukraine by Europe. Any mission in Ukraine must have the military support, and therefore the involvement, of Trump's America. It is no coincidence that Tajani repeats yes to sending troops, but only under the umbrella of the UN. In the meantime, Meloni must think about repositioning herself in the Old Continent (dealing with the new Germany) in relation to the White House. A risk that does not excite Italians, more involved in the high cost of bills.

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