The phone calls with Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano. Then the one with the mayor of Modena. The tweet thanking the "courageous" people who stopped the perpetrator of what could have been a massacre. Then the decision to go to Modena to visit the wounded with Mattarella, canceling the visit to Cyprus.
These were Giorgia Meloni's final hours after the Europe Gulf Forum, adding the issue of security to her already long list of concerns regarding the crisis in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the focus of discussions at the closed-door summit at the luxury resort in Navarino, in the Peloponnese.
This is "a time of polycrisis," and strategic cooperation between the Mediterranean and the Gulf is needed, Meloni urged yesterday to the audience of some thirty political leaders and heads of financial institutions from both regions, from British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy to Finnish President Alexander Stubb, from Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, to Kristalina Georgieva, Executive Director of the IMF, as well as the heads of government of the Gulf countries and Tony Blair. All were united by the need to emerge from a crisis that, for various reasons, has severe economic impacts on every part of the world.
As Tehran announces talks with European countries on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Meloni delivered one of the opening remarks, along with Antenna Group president Theodore Kyriakou (editor of La Repubblica and co-president of the Forum with Fred Kempe, who heads the US think tank Atlantic Council) and Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar. While talks on Hormuz are underway, government sources explain that Rome is not involved. They are watching the progress of negotiations between the Americans, Pakistanis, Israelis, and the Pasdaran. Iran must not be able to acquire nuclear weapons, and reopening the Strait "without tolls or discriminatory restrictions" is the "first pillar" for a "sustainable solution," Meloni clarified. And Italy is ready to contribute, "as soon as the conditions are right, to the safety of navigation, along the lines" of the Aspides and Atalanta missions in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
