“There is a great deal of outside meddling in Italian politics, but it is coming from EU leaders, like Jean-Claude Juncker, rather than the imaginary “troll factory” in St. Petersburg,” Fontana noted.
Juncker recently told reporters that “early March is very important for the EU. There will be referendums in Germany and Italy and I’m particularly worried about the outcome of the Italian elections. We need to be prepared to see the Italians failing to form a working government and, instead, having a provisional one.”
Marco Fontana sees such statements, made ahead of Sunday’s elections, as direct meddling in the situation in a sovereign member of the European Union.
“Italian media worries more about ‘fake news’ from Russia, not about statements by EU politicians, which can impact the outcome of the Italian elections,” Fontana noted.
He believes that Brussels has failed to learn from Brexit, and the more they try to tell Europeans what to do the stronger the backlash could be.
“We have already seen the main achievements by the governments of Mario Monti (2011-2013) and Enrico Letta (2013-2014), which bled the Italian economy white, destroyed the social sphere, sent the value of Made in Italy goods down, forced the closure of many construction companies and drove dozens of business people to suicide,” he emphasized.
He said that Yuncker had probably tried to forecast the outcome of Sunday’s vote: if the winner fails to garner enough votes to form a Cabinet, some other EU countries could try to persuade Italy to have a grand ruling coalition whose inability to govern will ruin the economy once again.
Juncker’s statement invited a joint chorus of condemnation from all of Italy’s political parties, save only for President Mattarella, who was the only Italian politician who refused to comment on it.
“Which is absurd, because as a guarantor of the Constitution, the president could have intervened and demanded explanations from Juncker. However, what we don’t have in Italy is an authoritative leader who really cares for the country and knows how to respond to outside meddling in our affairs,” Fontana emphasized.
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He added that Germany had taken months to form a a new government and no one dared say that the absence of a government was weakening Europe. Italy is another matter, especially with Eurosceptic parties now leading in polls.
“Who knows, if only Europe had different fundamental values it could have emerged as a string global player… But with just one or two countries now calling all the shots in the EU, the number of Eurosceptics will keep going up,” Marco Fontana concluded.
The views and opinions expressed by Marco Fontana are those of the observer and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.