On Monday, the Italian cabinet met in Rome for the last time before the political summer break. Most of the ministers already had their vacation homes firmly in view during the course of the day. Parliament even said goodbye to the holidays on Friday, having previously quickly adopted the cornerstones of the long-promised tax reform, which is intended to relieve the burden on citizens and companies. The details still have to be negotiated – in the fall then. Like everything else that is left behind.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was already thinking about the days off with her partner and daughter, who she wants to spend in Puglia. Before that, however, in addition to some ongoing scandals among her followers, she still has a new problem to present, which is actually an old one. But it could now grow into a major crisis: the demarcation of the largest governing party, Fratelli d’Italia, which is far right anyway, to the far right.
It was the most momentous terrorist attack. That he came from the far right is common knowledge
It all started with a statement from the head of communications for the capital region of Lazio, Marcello De Angelis. On the anniversary of the devastating bomb attack in Bologna train station in 1980, he posted on Facebook that the right-wing extremists convicted of it were not the perpetrators, after all everyone knew that – including the judges. In doing so, he went head-on against the general knowledge of this worst of all terrorist attacks in Italy. On August 2, 1980, the bomb killed 85 people in the train station and injured 200 others.
The assassination has burned itself into the country’s collective memory and has been extensively investigated by prosecutors, the judiciary and politicians. It is generally accepted that the convicted neo-fascists were responsible; however, they denied this from the start. To this day, there is speculation about who was behind the crime. At the commemoration ceremony, President Sergio Mattarella also spoke of a “proven neo-fascist matrix”.
De Angelis’ choice of words was a direct attack on the president, the judiciary, the system as a whole – actually only his immediate dismissal was an option. Apparently he himself expected nothing else, he spoke of going to the stake like the monk Giordano Bruno, who was sentenced as a heretic in Rome in 1600, “because I violated dogma”.
August 2, 1980: A time bomb hidden in a suitcase detonated in a crowded waiting room at Bologna train station.
(Photo: AP)
Instead, however, his boss, the regional president Francesco Rocca, a non-party politician close to Meloni, played for time and stood in front of his press chief, whom he has known for many years. It was his private opinion, and he was related to one of the convicts, so you had to understand that. In the afternoon, De Angelis apologized for his statements without initially having any further consequences.
That didn’t mitigate the opposition’s outrage. Even in Meloni’s party, many didn’t feel comfortable and demanded respect for state bodies. The Prime Minister was also “unhappy,” said Rocca on Monday, she called him and is said to have asked him: Clarify that, but leave the party and me out of the game.
It’s obvious what the method of the head of the Fratelli d’Italia is
Leave me out of the game – that’s Meloni’s ploy in other scandals in the government team. Especially when it comes to the relationship to fascism, she is remarkably taciturn. Again and again it is noticeable that she condemns events on commemoration days, but without naming the fascist or neo-fascist authors. With regard to the Bologna bomb, for example, she only spoke of an “act of terrorism”. The regional president of Emilia-Romagna, Stefano Bonaccini, a social democrat, criticized with biting irony in Bologna that they forgot to mention that the assassins were neo-fascists. One can only hope that this will not happen to her again next time. But it’s obvious that Meloni has a method behind it.
Of course, Meloni’s opponents are now reminding them that their Fratelli d’Italia party stands in a tradition of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Numerous leading personalities (mostly men) show their sympathy for Adolf Hitler’s closest ally, sometimes more or less openly. Relevant quotes from Meloni’s political beginnings are also known. She later resorted to the formal argument: “I’m not a fascist. I was born 30 years later.” Since she became the first woman and one of the youngest heads of government in Italy on October 22, 2022, she has not commented on this topic at all – or rather: by omission.
But now the pressure is increasing and the question is whether the topic will be forgotten over the summer. Less than a year after taking office, the capital newspaper commented on Monday on behalf of many non-right-wing media La RepublicaMeloni is at a crossroads: She is being “pulled into a dangerous whirlpool by a gloomy swamp with a black background (…) As if all the hypocritical distinctions, the hair-splitting, were about to crumble.”