Will we ever have a foreign minister more inconsistent than Luigi Di Maio?

If there is one voice that has not been heard in the crises of recent weeks in Hong Kong, Lebanon and Belarus, it is that of the Italian Foreign Minister. An inadequacy disguised as non-interference, which makes Italy increasingly insignificant at the international level

(photo: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP via Getty Images) 2020 is proving to be a hot summer for international diplomacy. Across the planet, so many national and international crises are leading to violations of human rights and the suspension of democratic principles: the kind of thing that requires firm positions on the part of the international community. There is the case of Lebanon, lashed by one of the most violent economic crises ever and by the double explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4, with thousands of people who took to the streets against a corrupt political class and which too often silenced the opinion and demands of his people. There is Hong Kong, where in recent weeks the Chinese authorities have once again put a gag on the cry of freedom of the population, amid arrests of opponents and new authoritarian laws. And there is also, for some days now, Belarus, where the dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko has once again won elections tainted by suspicion of fraud, and the authorities are arresting thousands of people in the streets, guilty only of demanding a functional democracy for the their country.

on the one hand there is those who propose sanctions for those states and you turn to give a hand to the demonstrators promoting their democratic demands. The other is Luigi Di Maio . The Italian Foreign minister, in the face of these crises has followed the line which has marked his entire first year of his mandate at the ministry: that of nothing cosmic , represented in a sense by the fact that at the nth updating of your social profiles to have a declaration in this regard, we found, instead, in front of his selfie with Andrea Scanzi in Sardinia . Every time something big happens on the international level, the certainty is that if there is someone whom we will not hear speak, the will Of Maio. In the books of the history of international relations, his approach may also be placed in the category of non-intervention , the principle that you will not interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states. But in fact, that the minister pentastellato is only inadequacy, that leads him to not take a position to avoid mistakes.



A nice evening in the company of Andrea Scanzi and many other friends in San Gavino in Sardinia. I had the pleasure of...

Posted by Luigi Di Maio on Monday, August 10, 2020

let's Take Lebanon , a village with a strong Italian imprint, with the contingent of blue helmets on the israeli border, just to guide the tricolor: after the drama of the explosions, we would have expected a role of first floor from part of Maio & co. in the emergency management and health policy. Instead, the field was left to the president of france Emmanuel Macron, while the foreign ministry there is content to send a few volunteers and a bit of packages of medical kits. The minimum wage, what you do every time that some drama hit a country around the world, but also the total withdrawal to do something more, a symptom of a total lack of vision on the Mediterranean. In the case of Belarus , while the United States to Canada to the European Union has taken a stand against electoral fraud and the repression of dissent, from Rome haven't heard a single word, as if the authoritarianism a stone's throw from the borders was not a thing that concerns us. A principle already used with Hong Kong , where, however, the silence of Maio is justified by the fear of compromising their commercial relationships with China (read the entry Via the silk) .

The vision of Maio would also seem to be some form of realpolitik . We have already seen in the past, when making good face to bad game, the minister of Pomigliano D'arco, filled the mouth of appeals to Egypt because it would make clarity on the death of Giulio Regeni , while selling to al-Sisi, frigates and military weapons. Afraid to take diplomatic positions that are uncomfortable, Luigi Di Maio, and then from Egypt to Belarus, through every corner of the world, is silent on what should not be to make sure that everything will continue to go to him, without the unnecessary grit to solve. An’ apathy diplomatic that is the worst spot for the foreign policy of european democracy in the twenty-first century, which makes Italy one was ever more indifferent to the rights of others, but also more and more insignificant, geopolitical.