Here we go again, as always for several years now. If Laurence Boone , French Minister for European Affairs, wanted to argue that it would have been necessary to monitor "respect for rights and freedoms in Italy" , surely Sergio Mattarella 's response, although timely, could almost sound like a justification " in limine "without a real disruptive force, since the affirmation purely and simply that" Italy (would) be able to look after itself in compliance with the Constitution and the values of the European Union ", is like wanting to say everything in order not to , and / or know, say nothing concrete in the intimate and bitter awareness that all in all, and probably, we could "have been looking for it".

But beyond any dutiful "mea culpa", the point would seem to be other and one, only one: no member country (or not) must and can feel obliged , even before being entitled, to mind our own business at home. ours , claiming to condition the political, social and economic choices as it happens regularly.

The fault, it is clear, is almost certainly and only ours, and Italy's lack of consideration in terms of international relations could just as well be only the tip of the iceberg if we only wanted to pause and reflect on one circumstance: that for which the collapse of the bi-polar system, and the corresponding disintegration of the leading parties of the constituent phase, Italian foreign policy has been substantially addressed, and in a far from meaningful way, by sporadic, inconsistent and uncertain individual figures (Luigi Di Maio, most recently , above all), an expression not only of rather jagged and questionable domestic political choices, but also of unstable international systems .

In saying it otherwise, we cannot continue to hide the fact that the Italian strategy on foreign policy has been anything but clear and transparent , probably losing on more than one occasion, and most recently with reference to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the diplomatic capacity that it had instead characterized the leading governments of the first republic.

Basically, if we really wanted to be intellectually honest, we should recognize that with the disintegration of the bi-polar system and the consequent weakening of the alleged American hegemony over the major areas of influence of the planet, and with the contextual fragmentation of the circles of power between different states , Italy has had , in spite of itself, to reorganize , and not always happily, its "foundations" of foreign policy , playing badly between tactics and strategy but lacking that "gravitas" capable of that attractive force to be able to magnetize the international attention for credibility and competence.

Lastly, although greater clarity was expected on the point, the issue of foreign policy, and its consequences on domestic economic policies, inevitably conditioned by the current international position of the country, were stifled in the context of an electoral campaign probably conducted in a "hypocritical" and unconvinced manner by the various competitors. And after the vote of 25 September just passed, the situation , unfortunately, did not hint to improve since the leaders of the various and different parties have taken great care not to express the slightest perplexity, however necessary, regarding choices. which involved the country in an absurd conflict that should and could have been managed through cautious and wise diplomatic action. If only in order to avoid the economic catastrophe that nowadays, and even more than before, is gripping the country, breaking up its social fabric.

Let us understand one point then, because in the long run this is what we are talking about: the Italian problem in the matter of foreign policy is likely to take the form of wanting to manage a strategic-tactical "nonsense" which is substantiated in the claim to be able to support, at the same time, both the the ideal of European integration and the stereotypical utopia of the persistence of an Atlantic alliance which, decades after the end of the conflict from which it arose, has now lost its defining contours, appearing almost like a watered down image of something that was but of which it has not been possible, and still does not succeed, to make the foundation survive given the various twists to the phenomenon inflicted when by center-left governments, when by center-right governments which, in the medium and long term culpably contributed to reducing Italy's weight and role on the European and world stage.

In essence, our governments , in an attempt to obtain accreditation on the international level that they have never managed to obtain, alternated between choices devoted to the ideal of European government extension to the maximum achievable potential, and decisions based on the minimalization of interference by the great European potentates , compromising, in fact, by confusion, also the transatlantic link.

Italy has not managed to impress the reliability that could have been expected by losing the opportunity to play an active role in the newly formed global scenario. Today we want to argue that Italy could not have been the great country it is if it had not followed up the process of European integration, if then, upon examination of the facts, that same integration presents itself and reveals itself to "alternating currents " To be functional only to the needs of the chancelleries of Germany and France who have always dictated the political and economic direction and who, if necessary, have been able to reverse the course by giving priority to their national interest.

The problem, therefore, is not Laurence Boone, in his role as French Minister for European Affairs, but it is Italian politics, unable to express and effectively represent the interests of its own country which, due to foreign policy choices based on , to Atlantic servility, has ended up compromising the economic fortunes of a nation left on its knees by the two-year pandemic and which, right now, risks reaching social collapse. Do we want to continue along the path we have traced or do we finally want to imprint a turnaround that can be said to be useful in saving what remains of a country that was flourishing and that risks retreating to conditions of underdevelopment?

Giuseppina Di Salvatore - Lawyer, Nuoro

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