ROME — Terms in haywire, Italy blocked and what is the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport doing? He posts a photo of himself as a child with his grandparents on Facebook: “Call them if you can, because grandparents are life.” And under an avalanche of comments, like that of Mr. Colombatti: «If there is time left it would be appropriate to deal with the trains». But the minister, party leader, deputy prime minister, Captain Matteo Salvini he has a lot of things to do and on his social pages there is little talk about planes, trains and delays, in fact there is no talk at all. And he doesn’t want to talk about it either.
Yesterday, while Termini was going crazy, he was planning a press conference at the Roma Ostiense station for the “presentation of the new Trenitalia brand”. And he blew it. Then in the early afternoon he was at The Young Pope event with the journalist Annalisa Chirico, where he said, still seraphic: «The opposition has been asking for my resignation for years because I breathe, because I live. They do their job: my duty is to guarantee mobility and therefore the mobile phone has been operational since dawn.”
Railway line failure, Salvini: “Error of a private company. Whoever made a mistake must answer for it”
Of course, in the meantime, those who summoned the CEOs of Trenitalia and RFI, the only ones entitled to explain what happened at Termini, were the deputies of the Carroccio: «If there were errors that have nothing to do with the enormous commitment made by the Minister Salvini, it is right that it is clarified”, thundered the Northern League members in the Transport commission. He, the leader, did not call them to report, despite rumors right in the ministry rooms that something is wrong in the communication of the staff of the CEOs of the two subsidiaries: because whoever leads RFI is in the area Raffaele Fitto and in Trenitalia there are Salvini’s men. And the two “worlds” wouldn’t talk much to each other.
However, traveling has also become a nightmare for Salvini, at least for the media. The minister, party leader, deputy prime minister, Captain cannot remain calm even when he takes the plane. Last September 13th, while the North was blocked due to the derailment of a train near Milan, in the early morning he posted a video from Fiumicino on social media: «Heading towards the Turin Motor Show to defend the Italian motor industry from the ideological madness of Brussels and the left.” Christian’s response to the post says it all: “I’m stuck on yet another Frecciarossa, instead of talking about the follies of the left, be a minister.” And what did Salvini do? From Turin he went to Cantù for a police party and in the evening he blessed the local League rally with the usual photo holding a banner that read: “The only one to defend the borders”. Good but not great, but what about commuters?
Delays and cancellation of trains, Salvini wishes his grandparents happy birthday on X. The irony of social media
edited by the Politics editorial team
September, the month of recovery, between the crises on the rails in Milan and Rome, was a disaster. The minister’s agenda? It was also an intense month for Salvini between a Lega gazebo in Florence to collect signatures against the Palermo prosecutor’s office who requested the indictment for the Open Arms case, a mission to Budapest to meet his groupmate in Brussels, the sovereignist of sovereignists Viktor Orbána trip to Venice for the historic Regatta and a check-up at the crucial Rho ice rink for the 2026 Olympics. Fourteen days out of thirty outside the ministry rooms last September.
But even when he is in the capital Salvini never stops and is often around conferences, presentations and seminars: he has attended at least a dozen of them. All interspersed with political meetings to bring together parliamentarians or the party’s federal council.
For Salvini, it is nothing new not to be too “sitting” in the ministries he leads: in 2018, as soon as he took office at the Interior Ministry, he spent two thirds of the summer in rallies and election parties. But then he was preparing the Papeete climb. In the first three months of 2023, at the start of his new experience as Infrastructure Minister, he spent 53 days elsewhere inaugurating construction sites in view of the regional elections which required his commitment in the field.
These days, however, the minister seems to have his mind set above all on Pontida, at Sunday’s rally. On stage he summoned the elite of the European right, that of the hard and black ones (with the exception of Afd). While he will reiterate that he is “the only one to defend the borders”: certainly not those of his ministry after the managers of the American Blackrock fund who want to invest in Railways in view of a possible opening to private. Had they warned the defender of Italianness?
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– 2024-10-03 03:20:36
