It is crucial that the new European
Commission should start immediately, Foreign Minister Antonio
Tajanai said Friday saying that Socialists who were against
European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) candidate for vice
president Raffaele Fitto of Premier Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of
Italy (FdI) party were "anti-European".
"For the good of Europe it is crucial to ensure that the new
Commission starts immediately: stopping it would be a very big
mistake," Tajani, who is also deputy premier and leader of the
centre-right post Berlusconi Forza Italia (FI) party, said after
meeting the president of his centre-right European People's
Party (EPP) caucus, Manfred Weber of Germany.
Tajani said that Fitto, minister for European affairs, cohesion,
the south and the National recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP)
who has been tapped as executive vice president with the
cohesion brief "is not an extremist, he is a Christian Democrat,
and stopping everything, so that he does not have the
vice-presidency, because he is a member of the ECR, is the
result of ideology.
"The position of the Socialists is not against the government or
against Italy, but against Europe. "Even (Italian President
Sergio) Mattarella said yesterday that it is important to have
Fitto as vice-president.
"And Weber, further, does not want the enlargement of the
majority".
The EC appointments have been blocked by the Socialist and
Democrats veto on Fitto and the EPP's veto on Spanish Premier
Pedro Sanchez's deputy premier and ecological transition
minister Teresa Ribera who is facing a showdown over the
Valencia floods.
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