EU talks of war while US, Russia talk peace says Salvini

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 19 - Deputy Premier, Transport Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini on Wednesday reiterated his criticism of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's ReArm Europe plan, comparing it unfavorably with the US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's call on Tuesday on a possible ceasefire on Ukraine.
    He also said that Premier Giorgia Meloni had a mandate to "defend the Italian national interest" and that von der Leyen's plan did not fall within this.
    "While the US and Russia talk about peace, does it seem normal to you that some people in Brussels want to spend money on war?," Salvini told reporters in the Belgian capital.
    "These people really seem to me to be on a different world, out of reality, on another planet.
    "Maybe they have already arrived on Mars thanks to Musk.
    "The European Union was created to guarantee peace, not to fuel new wars. "Italy's problem is its southern border and illegal immigration and the insecurity of our cities. It is not the invasion of the Cossacks "I don't know on whose behalf Ursula von der Leyen and (High Representative) Kaja Kallas are speaking.
    "It almost seems as if someone in Europe wants to boycott the peace process virtuously restarted by Trump, which has all our support and all our backing.
    "I don't think Russia is a threat to the world.
    "The threat for Italians are the too many illegal immigrants who, also thanks to the inertia of the European Union, have entered our country.
    "If we listened to Commissioner Kallas, we would be at war. I have a 21-year-old son, I don't want to send him to Ukraine because Mrs Kallas wants war.
    "With all due respect, she should go there.
    "The goal is to stop the weapons that are killing right now both on the Ukrainian front, which is the attacked side, and on the Russian front, which is the side that attacked.
    "So either we go on for another three years counting the dead or we try to stop them". (ANSA).