“Old as I am, if this were to pass I’d devote what’s left of my life to stopping it.” Mario Monti, 83, said that on a stage at Lake Como, a few feet from the man he was talking about.
The man was Roberto Vannacci, a former general whose Futuro Nazionale party has climbed to fourth place among Italy’s political forces in just seven months. On Saturday, Sept. 5, the two met in a debate on European integration at the TEHA Ambrosetti conference in Cernobbio, a gathering of managers and entrepreneurs. Reuters and the Italian paper Il Foglio both covered it.
Vannacci’s case against Brussels
Vannacci wanted the EU to stop deepening political integration and defend its cultural identity instead. He urged the 27-nation bloc to cut red tape and become “a platform of collaboration, not coercion.” Rules that choke economic initiative, he argued, should give way to the defense of Europe’s “culture and civilisation.” Business, in his telling, can only flourish in “a cohesive society” where “a spirit of sacrifice and a sense of belonging push citizens to work harder and take risks every day.”
He went further on economics. The Eurozone, he said, once produced 30% of global GDP and now produces about half that. He pointed to “industrial desertification” and layoffs in the car industry, and asked why anyone would prescribe the same medicine after 30 years without explaining its failure. The EU, he said, “risks becoming irrelevant.” He called for unanimity to be kept as “a guarantee,” rejected a European army, and told the hall to throw the Green Deal overboard. Rather than “ReArm Europe,” he said, perhaps Europe needed “ReBorn Europe,” given its birth rates.
He also placed himself in a wider movement. Right-wing forces like his own, Vannacci said, were the future of the continent, and he pointed to the strength of France’s Rassemblement National and to a vote the next day in Saxony-Anhalt, where Alternative for Germany hoped to win power for the first time. Jordan Bardella, the RN leader, spoke at the same conference and said he favored “changing everything without destroying anything” to build “a Europe of growth and a Europe of borders.”
Monti answers
Monti, a two-time EU Commissioner who led Italy through the 2011-12 debt crisis, did not argue the economics line by line. He went to the oath. “You swore an oath on the Constitution,” he told Vannacci, and a government program like his party’s would “blatantly violate it in many respects.” He said he saw no revival of the Fascist Party itself, but “the narrative, the rhetoric and the spirit of fascism.” He said he was “terrified” at the prospect of Futuro Nazionale feeding Italians’ dissatisfaction and resentment the way Mussolini had.
The room sided with the older man. Vannacci got polite applause; Monti got warmer. Arianna Fontana, the speed-skater who became Italy’s most decorated Olympian this year, told Reuters she was “almost moved to tears” by the end of Monti’s speech. Others in the hall leaned the other way. “Many of the things the General said are true,” said construction lobbyist Achille Colombo Clerici.
What Rome has to weigh
The stakes are domestic and close. Vannacci’s platform includes abolishing Italy’s same-sex civil unions and expelling immigrants who do not assimilate “the values of our civilisation.” His party is drawing support from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition, which will seek a new mandate at elections expected next year.
Sources
- Italy's far-right Vannacci lashes EU in business summit address (Reuters, via Global Banking & Finance Review)
- Monti meets Vannacci in Cernobbio: "I see in you the narrative, rhetoric and spirit of fascism" (Il Foglio)
- Sparks fly between Vannacci and Monti: "Throw away the Green Deal, no to forms of subordination." (L'Unione Sarda)
