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| Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte speaks to the media during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland |
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Friday accused France and Germany of using empty pro-European rhetoric while pursuing their national interests on areas from immigration to industry and international diplomacy.
In a hard-hitting interview in daily Corriere della Sera, Conte said Italy was no longer prepared to be treated as a โpoor relationโ while the EUโs largest states tried to increase their power and influence at the expense of real European integration.
โThey are only thinking of their national interests,โ Conte said, taking particular offence at a bilateral treaty signed this week in Aachen which committed to supporting Germanyโs bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
โThey are taking us for a ride,โ Conte said, arguing that there had been a broad agreement since the early 1990s that the seat at the UN should go to the EU as a whole, rather than to Germany
โThe truth is that we have caught France and Germany with their hand in the cookie jar,โ Conte said.
Italyโs coalition parties, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League, have repeatedly attacked French President Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks, accusing Paris of impoverishing Africa and fuelling migration across the Mediterranean towards Italy.
Conte, a former academic with no party affiliation, is normally seen as a moderate, mediating figure, but he warned France and Germany not to try to isolate Italy.
โCertainly our allies cannot believe that we will sit silently at the table to sign off on decisions taken by others,โ he said. โWhy should I take part in a summit if they have already decided everything?โ
French and German โEuropean rhetoricโ disguised their defence of national interests in finance and industry, he said, citing a case this month in which the two countries moved to block an Italian shipbuilderโs bid to take over a French rival.
โWe have to say these things out loud. If we donโt intervene we will have a historic responsibility for having remained silent,โ Conte said.
With opinion polls showing about 60 per cent of Italians back his administration, โno other government in Europe has the support we have,โ Conte said, adding that he would โnot accept the idea that we should behave like poor relationsโ.
โMaybe we have to start speaking more frankly, all of us, and to say that at this point Europe is a bit naked. The empty European rhetoric is no longer sufficient,โ he said.
