FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Italian Prime Minister Conte Calls European Parliament Attacks on Him ‘Their Swan Song’

Feb. 14, 2019 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Corriere della Sera and Repubblica, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte reacted to the assault he had to face in the European Parliament on Feb. 12 as described in the Feb. 13 Alert, by saying that “for some MEPs, their speech on Tuesday was somehow their swan song.”

Conte said that he is bitter, because although he expected to be attacked,

“I did not expect their unseemliness, their falsehoods.... How can anyone claim that Italy let children die at sea? It never happened.

“They insulted me, and through me, our country as a whole. I could not accept that, and I had the duty of remarking that, unlike others, I am not the figurehead of some business group, nor do I have a conflict of interests.”

Conte was referring to Belgian Liberal Democrat faction leader Guy Verhofstadt, who accused him of being “the puppet of Mr. Salvini and Mr. Di Maio,” the Lega and M5S leaders, who are the Deputy Prime Ministers.

“If anything, I was bitter because an opportunity was lost. We could have discussed the future of the Union, and instead, some MEPs turned the floor in Strasbourg into a talk-show arena.

“My government ... represents the change going on in Italy and Europe, which is why they attacked me. Many of them know that they will not be reelected. They are children of forces with an old vision. The new wind is blowing them away.

“They all speak about financial stability, but not about political and social stability. They overlook the very high domestic support which my majority has, and other countries do not have. Socialist Premier Pedro Sanchez in Spain is going straight ahead to early elections. In Belgium, they had a government crisis on the fiscal compact.”