Premier Giorgia Meloni said the letter she wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for exemptions from the Stability and Growth Pact for defence spending to be extended for measures to soften the impact of the energy-price shock triggered by Iran war was among the issues she discussed with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin in Rome on Friday.
“It is not a matter of taking on more debt, but of allocating what is already planned in the best possible way,” Meloni told a joint press conference with Martin at her office at Palazzo Chigi.
“The energy issue is an absolute priority for Italy.
“The Iranian crisis is having serious consequences for families and businesses, impacting the competitiveness of our production systems.
“We are faced with exceptional circumstances beyond the control of individual Member States which, in our view, require responses and justify extending the flexibility already granted for security and defence spending to include the investments needed to address the energy crisis.
“Because energy is also security, and the economy is also security for our systems.
“At a time when resources are difficult to find, Brussels must also reflect responsibly on the operating costs of its own administrative machinery,” she continued.
“I said to the EU Council, at our last meeting, that spending €800 million to renovate the headquarters of the Council of the European Union doesn’t seem to me to be a good sign, and so perhaps some signals on this front would be helpful”.
Meloni, who issued a joint statement with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany on Friday telling Israel to put an end to its settlements, said she and Martin agreed on issues regarding the occupied Palestinian territories.
“We also agree on some fixed positions the situation in Gaza and West Bank, without prejudicing Israel’s right to security,” she said, “the two-state solution as the only possible just and lasting peace, the importance of ensuring humanitarian assistance to the civilian population, and the condemnation of settler violence and Israeli settlement activities.
