Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.
This week, the long-threatened letter from Brussels arrived in Rome. It is about the huge debt that Italy wants to incur for its budget in 2019 - and which does not correspond to collusion with the EU. President Sergio Mattarella is now urging the government to finally negotiate seriously with the EU. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Finance Minister Giovanni Tria agree. For dinner with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker they wanted to take a few offers: a small reduction of new debt, for example.
Two tenths of a point behind the decimal point would suffice, middlemen had signaled. Even the EU-critical forerunner of the five-star movement, Luigi Di Maio, suddenly voted for a dialogue with Juncker and his commissioners.
Only Matteo Salvini, Minister of the Interior, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Lega, remains firm: nothing is changed on the Roman financial plan, which was rejected by Brussels. And the two Brussels travelers have "no mandate" to talk about a lower deficit. Sneeringly he mocked: "A letter from Brussels? We are waiting for the letter from Santa Claus."
Salvini remains on calculated crash course with the EU. For he needs an enemy against whom he defends Italy. That is his political strategy. Determined in appearance, gruff to brutal in the language. Sometimes it rages against the "enemies of Europe who have barricaded themselves in the bunkers of Brussels" and enslaves the poor peoples. Time against the immigrants who want to displace and drive out the Italians. He called for the "segregation" of migrants and Italians in railway cars and a criminal offense of illegal immigration. He even reprimanded Pope Francis when he called for a philanthropic treatment of refugees.
Lega success: From 4 to 32 percent
Salvini's friend-foe polemic brought him first to the head of the ex-separatist party Lega Nord and this then in dizzying speed in the top position of all Italian parties. In 2012, the former law student without a degree, later party secretary and journalist at the party radio station "Radio Frei Padanien" dismissed the old, ill, weakened by scandals party founder Umberto Bossi. After a year as head of the Lega in Lombardy, he took over the entire party. It was still small and insignificant, had won in the elections in 2013, just four percent.
Five Salvini years later, it is now well over 32 percent. Italy's policy is negotiated by the bosses of the two populist parties, even if they are only vice-premiers on paper. But in the regent duo, Di Maio becomes more and more helpless and insecure. The other, Salvini: more and more powerful and self-confident.
The issue of refugees and asylum seekers, however, is currently not enough for Salvini's populism spectacle. As brutal as it may sound: after locking up Italian ports for stranded refugees and driving aid out, many migrants die, but few still land in Italy. And the rain hardly anyone else. Marine Le Pen, French leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (until June 2018 Front National) and close allies of Salvini, praised him for his "political efficiency".
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So the oh-so-right-wing right-wing extremist is once again dedicated to his struggle against the "bureaucratic Europe", its "perverse economic concept" and the "criminal euro" - and of course against these "Junckers and Moscovici who refuse to take their seats vacate ". Sometimes he even calls the EU "regime" or "Soviet Union" or even "gulag". He has endured it for a long time in this gulag, since he was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to March 2018.
His concept is simple: chronic lack of money in Italian municipalities? Debt of the EU Stability Pact! Many Italians are falling below the poverty line? Consequence of the euro! Enormous unemployment among young Italians? The responsible people are in Brussels! But soon, so his promise, something is happening.
Alliances with Le Pen and Orbán, Bannon and Putin
The elections to the European Parliament in May next year should significantly change the balance of power in Europe. Salvini and France's Marine Le Pen work together for this goal. This is probably the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He is also raging against "those in Brussels", who at the same time, per capita, receive more money from his country than any other EU member.
The trio will be joined by other interested parties - such as the German AfD. Even five-star strategists are thinking of lining up when their own faction of partners is lacking.
Supporters of the Right-wing National Collection include powerful people, such as former Trump activist Steve Bannon and Salvini's great friend in Moscow, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. Already Lega fans see their new hero as the next boss of the European Commission. And he is not averse, it could indeed be conducive to the election result. But, of course, he knows that he and his political friends - according to current knowledge - Although significantly increase, but hardly come in the vicinity of the majority ability.
That's why he's only in second place. He wants to become the sole first in Rome, the new great leader of Italy. With the PR hype of the European election he wants to come nationally to the top. A quarrel with the stars is quickly ignited: new elections and then, so the calculus: on the executive chair in the Roman government "Palazzo Chigi".
At the Finish.
In summary: Matteo Salvini has shot himself: He no longer railing against refugees, but against Brussels. All the evil that happens to Italy, he sees the EU in debt. With this course, he hopes in the European elections in the coming year to many votes. His real goal, however, is different: He wants to dump his counterpart in the regent duo, five-star boss Luigi Di Maio, and finally take over alone power in Rome.