Meloni, the ghost prime minister wandering around Europe: isolated for her surrender to Trump, the “Willing” exclude her

This time, those absent from the photo, taken in Tirana, on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit, would appear to be French President Macron and German Chancellor Merz. On the other hand, with Zelensky, the President of the European Commission von der Leyen, the British Prime Minister Starmer and the Polish Prime Minister Tusk, there is Giorgia Meloni . But unfortunately for the Prime Minister, the reality is completely different. Because in the real photo of the day there are Tusk, Starmer, Macron, Merz and Zelensky , who talk about Ukraine and also call Trump, but Meloni was not invited to the table.

It may seem a bit ridiculous, this war of photos in which European leaders jostle to push out of the frame some other person on the margins not so much of some summit or funeral but of a war that has been raging for over three years. But the battle of snapshots is always eloquent, it perfectly describes the state of things at a given moment. Yesterday's tells of the isolation but also of Giorgia Meloni's desperate backtracking. The scoop by Die Welt , according to which Italy would have been crossed off the list of privileged allies included in the formula "Weimar plus ", where Weimar stands for the understanding Germany, France, Poland , at the request of the SPD, i.e. the PSE, has sent the Italian majority off their feet. The accusations leveled at the PD of complicity in a conspiracy against Italy have been wasted.

The incident will certainly be the talk of the town this afternoon in Rome between the Italian Prime Minister and the German Chancellor. But the episode, which was in itself more than unpleasant, has above all confirmed to Giorgia that she is under siege today: Macron who aims without hiding it to make her marginal , the PSE who trips her up as best he can, the Franco-German axis who has excluded her from the control room and proceeds as if the Italian did not exist, the Volenterosi who are proceeding with their project of an armed peace expedition to Ukraine in which Italy has chosen not to participate. The attempt to put the main leader of the European right who has come to government out of the game would have happened anyway. But she has done her part. She has made the maneuver much easier with Trump's swerve: weeks in which she has burned a good part of the pro-European credibility that she had earned, largely thanks to her clear pro-Ukraine stance, in two and a half years of international politics.

Now, also pressed by the veiled but very clear criticism of President Mattarella and perhaps also by the Pope with whom she spoke for the first time on the phone on Thursday and who is much more passionate about the cause of Kiev than his predecessor, Giorgia is trying to go back. The speech she gave yesterday in Tirana is almost disconcerting, if one thinks of the positions she was shouting until a few years ago, for her level of Europeanism: "Albania is Europe, like Italy or Serbia, it doesn't matter if they are part of this or that organization. Among those sitting at this table, some have not joined the EU, others aspire to join but all are no less European than the 27 of the EU. Europe is the common home and being here today is a step in the historic process of reunification of Europe ." But above all, being European and standing with Kiev without any hesitation are the same thing: " Every day the heroism and tenacity of the Ukrainian people remind us what Europe is, the deepest meaning of our common identity. Our freedom and our security depend on the re-establishment of the force of law over the law of the strongest." These are the tones she had used for years and which had opened all the doors to Brussels and Washington for her. They are also the ones she had abandoned to go overboard, making a resounding mistake, in favor of Donald Trump's new Washington.

The prime minister does not limit herself to high-sounding words. Italy should be present at the next summit of the countries that met last week in Kiev and this time Giorgia will be there in person. The government has reconsidered the possibility of requesting the activation of the clause that allows debt for rearmament without running into the traps of the Maastricht parameters. That is, to actually adhere to the rearmament plan after having voted for it. The final decision has been postponed until the end of June, after the NATO summit. The road is uphill: the very strong political resistance of the League must be overcome , Giorgetti must be convinced, if possible even more against it but for other reasons: the understandable hostility in the face of the possibility of further increasing a public debt that has once again skyrocketed. But the mere fact that the activation of the instrument invented by the rearmament-minded Ursula von der Leyen is no longer 100% excluded says it all. But recovery, for Giorgia, will be very difficult and a photo will not be enough to do it. Yesterday at the end of the summit, Macron, Merz, Starmer and Tusk met with Zelensky. Together they called Trump. Nobody invited Giorgia.

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David Romoli