Ruptly
"Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday said she had 'not changed her mind' on defence spending, but warned of the need to allocate funds to support Italian families and businesses amid a global energy crunch. Meloni noted her belief that defence spending is essential for preserving sovereignty, while calling for European flexibility to address the economic impact of the Iran crisis and rising energy costs. "If you are unable to defend yourself, if you ask someone else to guarantee your security, you will pay for it in terms of autonomy, sovereignty, and the ability to defend your national interests," Meloni explained, during remarks at Italy’s Confindustria Assembly in Rome. "Defence spending is the price of freedom, and I want Italy to be a free nation," she added. Meloni stated that Italy has asked the European Commission to extend fiscal flexibility measures amid the global energy crisis caused by conflict in the Middle East. "These are clearly circumstances beyond the control of EU member states and, from our point of view, they fully justify extending the flexibility already granted for security and defence spending to the investments needed to address the energy crisis as well," she explained. "That is why, as you know, Italy has written to the European Commission to request that the scope of the National Escape Clause be extended to include the measures needed to protect families, workers, and businesses from the impact of the crisis," she said. The Italian Prime Minister said the request is not aimed at creating new debt, but at reallocating resources already planned towards supporting households, workers and companies facing higher costs amid the global energy crisis. "At the same time, I also know that if we do not help families and businesses overcome the impact of a crisis that is significant today, we risk there being nothing left to defend tomorrow in this nation," Meloni stressed. The Italian leader also said Europe needed to move quickly toward a genuine single market for capital and savings. "We cannot pretend not to see that every year more than €300 billion in European liquidity ends up in investments outside the EU. This is damage that we can no longer afford," Meloni noted. Economists say the huge annual consumer capital outflow from EU states, predominantly into the US, could otherwise be used to support key European modernisation programmes, ranging from rearmament, green transition, AI and other high-tech infrastructure."
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