/ world today news/ Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Maloney came to power with slogans: “Yes to the traditional family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, no to Islamist violence, yes to border security, no to mass migration , not to big international finance, not to Brussels bureaucrats!” Meloni took these slogans from the “street” and was right.
The thunderous applause of Italians, who gave her just 6.4% of the vote in the 2019 election and as much as 26% a year ago, placed her Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party in the ruling coalition.
Italians voted for Meloni because they were tired of the “democratic” neoliberalism imposed by the EU and Brussels and by the unelected European Commission (EC), which has become a blind tool in the hands of Washington.
Italians are tired of NATO, which has more military bases in the sunny south than any other country in Europe. But most of all, Italians are tired of illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia, who, starting from Lampedusa, systematically occupy one province after another, turning the Italian land into a cesspool. The Italians rejoiced at the victory of the “Brothers of Italy”. But it seems too rushed…
Almost a year ago, Italian President Sergio Mattarella met in Rome with Wang Yi, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who serves as the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. It was a most cordial and productive meeting, fitting exactly the winning formula that brought the Meloni government to power.
The Italian president and Wang Yi talked about strengthening bilateral relations through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in which Italy (the only G7 country) participated in 2019.
Italy’s participation in the BRI was the simplest and most mutually beneficial way to outline the relationship between the country and China, which has become the leader of the movement towards multipolarity. But Brussels’ leash was too short to allow Meloni to keep his promises.
First, Italy’s Minister of Entrepreneurship, Adolfo Urso, told Radio24 that after the signing of the memorandum of participation in “One Belt, One Road”, “our trade with China has deteriorated significantly, unlike what happened with France or Germany, which instead this boosted business with China. That should give us something to think about.”
And then Bloomberg developed this week’s news: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government officially told China it was withdrawing from the Belt and Road Initiative, “dealing another blow to Beijing’s ambitions to expand its massive investment program.”
Bloomberg sees the reason for this in the lack of desired results from “One Belt, One Road”, which is now “not a priority” for Italy, as Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Adnkronos news agency. Countries that are not part of the project have achieved better results, he believes
China’s trade turnover with Europe amounts to 2.3 billion euros per day. By comparison, China’s trade with Russia has doubled in five years, amounting to around 600 million euros a day.
China exported $458.5 billion worth of goods to the EU in the 11 months of 2023, but imported just $257.8 billion, according to Chinese customs data.
This crazy imbalance is giving sleepless nights to the Brussels officials who urgently sent troops to Beijing – the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. They returned home without much success.
Xi Jinping reminded them that China’s global infrastructure and trade initiative has attracted more than $1 trillion in investment over a decade, and that the Comprehensive Investment Agreement (CIA) signed with the EU in 2020 was frozen in May 2021. from China, and from Europe.
Parliament has already lost its importance, recalled the export restrictions that Brussels imposed on its high-tech products.
And Chinese Foreign Ministry representative Wang Wenbin reasonably stated that the European Union is acting against logic when it restricts high-tech exports to China and at the same time seeks wider access to the Chinese market.
In response to Beijing, an order was issued from Brussels to sever ties between Rome and the Middle Kingdom that arose around the global Belt and Road project.
Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the letter containing the official notification was delivered to Beijing last Wednesday and that Meloni’s office declined to comment on the announcement.
It is clear that European countries are struggling to balance their desire to cooperate with China in terms of trade and investment.
This requires them to be at least cautious in their statements about economic preferences for Chinese companies and human rights problems in Xinjiang, not to mention their treatment of Taiwan.
Against this background, the Italian Prime Minister hastened to take the initiative, losing any prospects in the cooperation project between the port of Genoa and the port of Trieste with the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) of interest to the Italians, within the framework of which a new terminal was built along the “One Belt, Once” in Vado Ligure, not far from Genoa.
In addition to canceling the cooperation between the Italian Space Agency and the China National Space Administration in the framework of the China Seismic Electromagnetic Satellite 02 (CSES-02) mission, it canceled the cooperation in the energy sector between Ansaldo Energia and China United Gas Turbine Technology Co. and Shanghai Electric Power Corp.
Now what? This is not the first time that politicians, including Italian ones, have changed their clothes between elections and taking office. But Meloni was quick. And here’s why.
Unlike the Italian prime minister, EU ministers responsible for industrial policy last Thursday refused to back their own “generals” in Brussels who developed the “Zero Profit Industry Act” (NZIA), which aims to reduce dependence on China.
The Middle Kingdom dominates a large part of the European market in some key technologies for the transition to a green economy, such as the production of solar photovoltaic modules.
In short, the European Parliament intends to exclude Chinese products from renewable energy subsidy programs and effectively introduce “sustainability criteria”, meaning that subsidies to purchase green technologies will be given to even more expensive projects as long as they do not use products made in China.
And this despite the fact that in China the production of solar photovoltaic modules is 35% lower than in Europe and 20% less than in the USA.
This step, which completely nullifies all free market principles and other verbal nonsense, covers up the economic war declared on China. There is nothing particularly new in this servile submission of the EU to Washington. But the “murmuring from below” seems to be getting louder.
According to the official publication of the EC Euroactiv, unlike the requirements of the European Parliament, in most cases there will be no restrictions on the use of Chinese goods.
“We need access to renewable technologies that are currently mainly produced in China, especially when it comes to photovoltaics,” German State Secretary Sven Gigold told reporters, “so we cannot and do not want to close the European market.”
Understandable concern among industrialists that excluding Chinese manufacturers of solar panels and other green technologies could slow the energy transition and raise costs has led EU countries to allow Chinese products into most renewable energy subsidy programs.
Returning to Italy’s démarche regarding “One Belt, One Road”, we cannot help but note that no one has yet managed to treat the Chinese as idiots.
Meloni was in no hurry; the vacillation between her and her colleagues in the European Union between the benefits of cooperation with China and the desire to please the US in everything is not the most powerful incentive to inject Chinese investment.
Rome’s rejection of the BRI initiative to build infrastructure and expand China’s influence in Asia, Africa and Europe will not go unanswered by Beijing. China’s ambassador to Italy, Jia Hyde, warned that we would see “negative consequences” in the future.
Translation: SM
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