Ruling EU alliance should reach out to ECR - Tajani

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 1 - The ruling EU coalition supporting Ursula von der Leyen getting a second term at the helm of the European Commission should reach out to the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR), which is chaired by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and includes her right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday.
    "A broad majority is needed to give a response to voters" Tajani, whose Forza Italia (FI) belongs to von der Leyen's European People's Party (EPP), said as he arrived at the inauguration of the Milan section of the Unified Patent Court.
    Meloni and the ECR were not involved in the negotiations that led to von der Leyen being nominated for a second term and former Portuguese premier Antonio Costa getting the nod to come in as the new European Council chair and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas to become the new EU foreign policy chief.
    Meloni abstained on von der Leyen's nomination at last week's EU summit, while voting No to Costa and Kallas, saying the deal between the EPP, Costa's Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Kallas's liberal Renew Europe was "wrong in method and substance".
    In an interview published in Monday's Corriere della Sera, Tajani explained his stance more fully.
    "There are several majorities within the EU," he said.
    "There is one in the European Council, is represented by von der Leyen.
    "Then there is another in European Parliament, which must elect von der Leyen and gives approval to commissioners and can change from dossier to dossier.
    "I protested at the EPP (pre-summit) meeting for more attention to be paid to our requests, and I stated that we would not accept an opening to the Greens.
    "And I also said, and I will work for this until the 18th, that we must open up to the Conservatives if we want to be sure that von der Leyen will be voted for.
    "It is good for the principle of stability that the majority that supports her is broad and certain.
    "An agreement with the Conservatives is fundamental, we cannot preclude dialogue with the right".
    He added that Italy had the right to a major position within the new EU executive.
    "It cannot not have a important commissioner and vice president," he said, adding that European Affairs Minister Raffaele Fitto, a member of Meloni's FdI, fits the bill. (ANSA).