Silvio Berlusconi made himself available to Mario Draghi on the Ukraine dossier. And what informed sources explain to Formiche.net of the conversation between the leader of Forza Italia and the Prime Minister which took place on Sunday. The good relationship of the former prime minister with Vladimir Putin is well known, as evidenced by the year-end phone call between the two. Suffice it to say that in 2015 the Financial Times wrote that the Russian president considers Berlusconi “the last of the Mohicans” in Europe, one of the few politicians with “a broad and strategic vision”.
“To guarantee continuity and impulse to government action” and the need indicated by the leader of Forza Italia, reiterating the support of his party for the work of the Prime Minister. “Italy has made important steps forward but the emergency is not yet resolved,” he said in a statement.
There is the economy, with Italy called to ratify the Mes (European Stability Mechanism), the only country that has not yet done so together with Germany. But there is also the international situation, as stated in the note released by the former Prime Minister. “At a time of serious tension in the world, our country’s international credibility is also at stake”, reads the statement. Then Berlusconi specifies: “This is the trust capital that Europe invested in us, also at my personal solicitation to the main European leaders, when the Recovery Fund was launched”.
But according to Formiche.net, the leader of Forza Italia wanted to linger for several minutes with the former governor of the European Central Bank on foreign policy, in particular on the situation in Ukraine.
This week, in fact, the announced meeting that Putin would have asked Draghi could take place, as revealed by Corriere della Sera. However, “the diplomatic office of Palazzo Chigi is waiting for a response from the Kremlin”: the Kremlin has not “yet been communicated a useful space in the agenda of the Russian president”, explained the daily.
Moscow is looking for the side of Rome to avoid sanctions, as clearly emerged in the recent meeting between Sergey Lavrov and Luigi Di Maio . “Sanctions cannot be passed if at least one country is against it (…) I don’t think Italy is interested in fomenting tensions,” said the Russian Foreign Minister during the press conference with his Italian counterpart.
Furthermore, the head of Russian diplomacy explained that Moscow sees “a continuity” in the work carried out by Italy for multilateral cooperation, starting from 2002, when dialogue between Moscow and NATO was established in Pratica di Mare thanks to the Declaration of Rome. Then Berlusconi, Prime Minister, had Putin and US President George W. Bush shaking hands .
Since that moment the “spirit of Pratica di Mare” has often been evoked at various times – Forza Italia has come to define it as a crucial passage in the “end of the Cold War”. In recent days Gianfranco Rotondi, vice president of the Forza Italia group in the Chamber, relaunched the tweet of a certain Marzia who says: “Send #Berlusconi to talk to #Putin. Immediately”. In the middle of the quirinal match, Vittorio Sgarbi had suggested, as a guest of L’aria che tira su La7, that the former prime minister should go to the Russian leader to tell him to block the tanks as a “twist” to pave the way for the Colle.
And also on the left there are those who do not forget the relations between the two leaders: “If Berlusconi could find two minutes for a phone call to Putin, in my opinion it would not be a wrong idea”, Filippo Sensi wrote in the last few hours, also on Twitter. , deputy of the Democratic Party.
In addition, several insiders had not missed the interview granted in recent days by Maria Zakharova , spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, in Fourth Republic, the talk show hosted by Nicola Porro on the “Berlusconi” Rete4.
On the other hand, Draghi’s line is very similar to that of Berlusconi: pro-European and Atlanticist, but also attentive to dialogue with Russia for economic reasons based on stability and predictability. “The sanctions must be effective and sustainable, they must be concentrated in sectors that do not include energy and that are proportionate to the attack and are not preventive”, declared the Prime Minister in recent days, recalling that Italy and the Country “most exposed” to Russia on gas.
