Italy’s Meloni defends Musk and Trump in rare press conference — 5 takeaways

 

Italy’s Meloni defends Musk and Trump in rare press conference — 5 takeaways

 

PM says her relationship with U.S. president-elect is “very solid” and insists his recent incendiary remarks flow from a “peace-through-strength” approach.

 

January 9, 2025 9:15 pm CET

By Hannah Roberts

https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-giorgia-meloni-press-conference-elon-musk-donald-trump/

 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni faced a two-hour grilling from the Italian press on Thursday, covering a range of issues from her support for Ukraine to a full-throated defense of United States President-elect Donald Trump and his tech billionaire pal Elon Musk.

 

The PM has often had an antagonistic relationship with the media, having attacked left-wing newspapers, sued journalists and introduced a so-called gagging law preventing the publication of information about arrests and investigations.

 

POLITICO brings you five takeaways from the call.

 

Trump has his reasons

Meloni, who is gaining a reputation as Europe’s future bridge to Donald Trump, came to the president-elect’s defense after he floated his designs on Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. Meloni brushed off the threat of a U.S. invasion, claiming that when Trump does something, it’s “for a reason.”

 

Instead, Meloni said she sees Trump’s comments as a “forceful message to other big global players rather than a hostile action.” As president from 2017 to 2021, Trump was capable of deterrence diplomacy, Meloni added.

 

Meloni visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida last weekend and said the welcome she received had been “beyond expectations.” She said she made the trip “to confirm a relationship that promises to be very solid, I don’t know if I can say privileged.” While Meloni built a strong relationship with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden since 2021, she foresaw that having two conservative leaders in power at home and in the U.S. would create “an added value, for Italy and for Europe.”

 

Meloni also confirmed she had been invited to Trump’s inauguration, and said she would go “gladly” if her diary permits.

 

Triangular talks facilitated Sala’s release

Meloni reveled in the Wednesday liberation of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala. Telling Sala’s mother that her daughter was free “was the most emotional moment of the past two years,” Meloni said.

 

Sala was arrested in Iran in December, after Italy detained a suspected supplier of drone parts, Mohammed Abedini, wanted by the U.S. Pressed for details as to whether Trump had given Meloni permission to free Abedini, facilitating Sala’s release, Meloni said the negotiations had been triangular between Italy, Iran and the U.S., and added that talks on Abedini’s arrest must continue with the U.S.

 

Musk not ‘dangerous to democracy’

Musk has rarely gone a day recently without raising hackles with his meddling in European politics. But Meloni, who is counting on her strong relationship with Musk to help her build ties with the Trump administration, argued that Musk is not “dangerous to democracy.”

 

Real election interference, she said, happens when “wealthy people use resources to finance parties and associations around the world to influence policies, as in the case of George Soros.”

 

“Is the problem that [Musk] is rich and influential, or that he’s not left-wing?” she asked.

 

Meloni insisted she had never spoken to Musk about a potential €1.5 billion Starlink deal to provide secure military satellite comms, which has drawn concern that sensitive data could wind up in the hands of a foreign power. The lack of a publicly-owned alternative presents her with a “dilemma,” she said, admitting she was undecided.

 

“If tomorrow those communications end up in the wrong hands, the government is responsible: I can’t pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.”

 

Abandoning Ukraine ‘would be an error’

Meloni also predicted that the U.S. will not abandon Ukraine in its war with Russia. Despite concerns that the new Trump administration will halt aid to Ukraine and strong-arm the government into peace talks, Meloni said Trump has “spoken often of obtaining peace through strength.”

 

“I have always maintained that the only way to force Russia to sit at the negotiating table was to construct a difficult situation” on the ground, she said. Trump’s first presidency showed he has the ability to “mix diplomacy and deterrence,” she added, predicting it will be the same this time around. Abandoning Ukraine at this point, she said, “would be an error.”

 

Migrant deportations to Albania could restart ‘any day’

The prime minister’s radical plan to offshore migrant processing and detention to centers in Albania — at a cost of more than €600 million — hit several bumps in the road after Italian judges freed all the migrants on their arrival in Albania and referred the case to the European Court of Justice.

 

Despite its problems, Meloni’s flagship plan has attracted the interest of other European leaders facing domestic pressure on migration. The European court is due to start working on the issue in February, Meloni said, but following a judgment favorable to the government by Italy’s constitutional court, Rome doesn’t plan to wait around. The boats are ready and the operation is due to restart “any day,” she added.