On Ukraine Arms, Meloni — and the EU’s Leadership — is Increasingly Embattled
More developments are coming out of Italy.
On Wednesday, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni gave indications that the anti-weapons, pro-negotiations front may be having its effect. In comments delivered in the Italian Senate, Meloni said that:
“The only way to encourage negotiations is to create a balance between the forces involved [in the fighting]” (1)
and:
“If Italy were to turn its back… the rest of [Western Europe] would continue to send weapons, Great Britain alone sends more weapons than all the [rest] of the west [Western Europe, ndr]. The course of the war would not be affected, but our credibility would.” (2)
The first of these statements is a big deal because it is the first time that any of the West’s ‘pro-weapons’ leaders has articulated anything resembling a limit on arms shipments to Ukraine. Biden’s position so far has been that the West should keep pouring on the coal until the Russians are utterly defeated, this being, after all, a proxy war. Zelenskij has declared that no negotiations will ever happen, and that Ukraine will not stop until all its eastern provinces have been retaken — including Crimea.
What Meloni seems to be saying is that her government supports arms’ supplies only until operational parity is achieved on the ground, at which point negotiations must start.
The second statement is even more revealing. What Prime Minister Meloni is saying, in effect, is that Italy’s contribution to Zelenskij’s war effort is superfluous: Italy could stop tomorrow, and it would make no difference.
Looking at the official statistics, one sees that this is, in fact, an accurate statement. The following numbers show total aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, in €Billions ; countries are ranked by military expenditure (3):
Italy is number 19 on the list, at €150 Million in military aid — less than 0,4% of the world total; while Britain is second only to the United States. If we count together all the Commonwealth countries that supply military aid — U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand — we arrive at a total of €4,93 Billion in military aid, nearly double the E.U.’s expenditure. The U.S. and Commonwealth countries comprise 79% of all military aid to Ukraine.
So no, Italy’s contribution is not needed. In fact, all of the military assistance that comes from Europe’s member states individually could be eliminated and it would hardly make a dent in the arms flow to Ukraine.
“Ah, but-” says Meloni, “Italy would lose credibility.”
Credibility with whom?
According to a 13 October poll by international market research institute IPSOS (4):
- only one in four Italians believes Italy should continue to send arms to Ukraine
- 60% of Italians say it is time for Zelenskij to negotiate with Putin
- 50% of Italians say they support neither side in the conflict
- less than one in four Italians feel that the sanctions against Russia are effective
- only 43% of Italians say they ‘support Ukraine’ — a 14% drop since April
According to an October, 2022 poll conducted by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (5), a think tank founded by EU visionary Altiero Spinelli, only 43% of those who voted for Meloni’s governing coalition approve of Italy sending arms to Ukraine. An EMG poll from May, 2022 put support for arms shipments among Fratelli d’Italia voters at 42% (6); a September poll by Ixè revealed only 37% support among Meloni’s base (7). The following graph, using data from EMG (8), shows the erosion of consensus among the forces supporting Meloni’s government, between March and June, 2022:
The red line in the graph represents the population at large, and has been steady at 23% for the last five months.
It is not credibility among the Italian electorate, or even among her own voters, that Meloni is courting. What she is courting is the approval of the EU leadership: Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Paolo Gentiloni, Mario Draghi.
Why is this important?
For Meloni, it is important because — as Roberto Scarpinato, one of Italy’s most famous anti-mafia judges, now a Senator with M5S, pointed out the other day on the Senate floor (9) — her party and coalition are littered with people who continue to glorify the fascist past. Meloni, in her reply, accused Scarpinato of applying the same methods as those judges who “built losing cases” (10). The reference is to failed court cases against various elements of the Italian Secret Services; politicians such as Giulio Andreotti (one of the most corrupt men in Italian history); and Silvio Berlusconi (11). The extended applause that erupted from the benches of Meloni’s supporters is an eerie reminder of how little has changed in the Italian Right.
In other words, Meloni has a great need of legitimation from outside the system, and she is seeking it in the EU leadership.
For the EU leadership, on the other hand, Italy’s cooperation in continuing arms shipments to Ukraine is important because sizeable, and growing, minorities throughout Western Europe are re-thinking the Continent’s approach to the Ukraine situation.
The above table, adapted from IPSOS’ April, 2022, ‘Global Advisor’ survey (12), shows responses in seven EU countries to four questions: “should your country increase sanctions against Russia?” (column 1); “should your country eliminate gas and oil shipments from Russia?” (column 2); “should your country maintain diplomatic relations with Russia?” (column 3); “should your country supply arms to Ukraine?” (column 4).
The table shows that already six months ago, majorities supporting an energy embargo against Russia existed in only three countries: France, Poland and Sweden, and in France the majority was only 52%. On the question of arms shipments, majorities in support existed in only five countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden, and the majorities in France and Germany were only 53% and 55%, respectively.
Polls conducted in France in March and October, 2022, by Le Monde in collaboration with research firm Jean Jaures (13), suggest that there has been a strong drop-off of support for sending arms to Ukraine: in the March, 2022, poll, 65% said they supported arming Ukraine, including 35% who ‘strongly’ supported doing so; in the October survey, that number had dropped to 52%, with only 20% ‘strongly’ approving the measure. A recent poll conducted in the Netherlands suggests that only 49% of the population ‘unconditionally supports Ukraine’, down from 65% in March; according to the survey only 24% of people in the Netherlands still support sanctions against Russia (14). According to a poll conducted in Germany, support for ‘heavy arms shipments’ stood at 54% in the Western part of the country at the end of September; in the East, it was only 32% (15) Meanwhile, ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel has come out of her self-imposed retirement to call for negotiations (16).
If Meloni’s government — under pressure from its base, from the Left and from the Vatican (Meloni says her government represents ‘Christian’ values, yet on Ukraine her policy is diametrically opposed to the Vatican’s) — were to change its stance on the issue of arms shipments, it would unquestionably ramp up the pressure on Europe’s other governments to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Friday, 28 October, 2022, 25,000 people demonstrated in Naples for an end to arms shipments to Ukraine.
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(1) In the original Italian: “L’unica possibilità di favorire un negoziato è che ci sia un equilibrio tra le forze in campo”.
(2) In the original Italian: “Se l’Italia si girasse dall’altra parte … il resto dell’occidente continuerebbe a mandare le armi, la sola Gran Bretagna manda più armi di tutto l’occidente. Cambierebbe quindi non l’esito della guerra, ma la nostra credibilità“
(3) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/
(5) https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/laps-iai_2022.pdf
(6) http://sondaggipoliticoelettorali.it/GestioneSondaggio.aspx, Sondaggio11643, 12/05/2022
(7) https://www.istitutoixe.it/newsletter/2022/20220902.pdf
(8) these are EMG Difference polls No.s: 10543 (03.17.2022) 10559 (03.24.2022) 11572 (03.31.2022) 11581 (04.07.2022) 11610 (04.21.2022) 11643 (05.12.2022) 11661 (06.02.2022)
(11) The defendents in these cases were accused of corruption, subversion of the democratic order, and/or collusion with the Mafia. All cases were overturned in appeal, essentially because the State had not been provided sufficient proof against the accused.
Emblematic is the case of the Borghese coup. In 1970, a group of neofascists, with backing from rightwing sectors of the Christian Democratic party, started — and, mysteriously, stopped mid-stream — a coup agains the Italian government. Elements within the Italian Secret Services carried out a successful investigation — whose results, however, never got into the hands of prosecutors. Instead, most of the documents disappeared as they were handed up the chain of command, from the chief investigating officer (Antonio Labruna) to the head of Italian counterespionage (General Gian Adelio Maletti) to then Defense Minister Giulio Andreotti. The remaining evidence was enough to indict, but ultimately not to convict, the accused.
(12) https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/war-in-ukraine-april-2022
(13) https://www.jean-jaures.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UkraineEN.pdf; https://www.jean-jaures.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Fractures_francaises_vague10.pdf
(16) On 27 September, 2022, Angela Merkel broke her self-imposed silence since stepping down as Chancellor, to criticize the EU’s stance on Ukraine. While condemning Russia’s invasion, she insisted that there needs to be a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, in the context of a global European-Russian-Ukrainian security agreement. “As long as we haven’t really managed to do that, the Cold War isn’t really over…” she said.
c. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202210/28/WS635b264da310fd2b29e7ef58.html