Giorgia Meloni wasn’t exactly heaped with praise when she announced on Monday new agreements with Saudi Arabia, worth around €10 billion—the beginning, she said, of improved “strategic cooperation with this important player in the Gulf and in the wider Mediterranean.”
Instead, Italian opposition figures were quick to accuse the prime minister of flip-flopping, pointing in particular to a 2019 clip of Meloni criticising the lack of civil rights in the Saudi kingdom (as if this should stop Italy from developing any ties with it at all).
The left-wing Democratic Party jibed that “now Giorgia Meloni doesn’t let a single day pass without contradicting herself.” To date, surely not enough time has passed for it to forget its own officials were heavily implicated in the ‘Qatargate’ scandal, taking bribes from a country with a similar social structure, in return for influencing votes in the European Parliament.
Responding to her critics, Meloni said:
The opposition accuses me of anything but there is no contradiction between what I said yesterday and what I do today in the relationship with Saudi Arabia. Italy and Saudi Arabia are two nations that have an interest in making strategic agreements in matters such as energy, the relationship with Africa, defense, investments.
Il Giornale added that improved relations could help Rome in its efforts to clamp down on illegal migration.
Among the deals with Saudi Arabia, Italian defence group Leonardo signed a memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation in aerospace and defence. Agreements were also reached on various green projects—ironic, given all the criticism from the Italian left.
Meloni’s later visit to Bahrain—again, to strengthen Italy-Gulf ties—was the first ever by an Italian head of state.
