The release of Cecilia Sala is only the latest in a series of diplomatic successes of the Italian government led by the centre-right and Giorgia Meloni. The Prime Minister, in these two years, has been able to build a new image of Italy, holding bilateral talks with the most important personalities in the world and often succeeding in convincing his interlocutors of the goodness of his theses. Also and above all, this has served to resolve objectively complicated situations, which raise more than legitimate questions: what would have happened if there had been someone else in government?
It is no coincidence that many left-wing politicians also recognised the merits of the executive in resolving what the Financial Times described as the ‘toughest diplomatic challenge since’ Giorgia Meloni ‘took office’. From Schlein to Conte, from Renzi to Calenda, leading opposition politicians have recognised that Cecilia Sala’s return to Italy is the result of intense diplomatic work carried out by the government with absolute secrecy, far from the spotlight. Diplomacy and intelligence, coordinated towards a result that arrived in a matter of days.
The other results: Chico Forti and Patric Zaki
This is not the first time the government has managed to overcome such a significant diplomatic challenge. Going backwards, one encounters the release of Chico Forti, the former yachtsman and television producer arrested and imprisoned in Miami since 1998 for accusing Dale Pike, son of Anthony, with whom the Italian was negotiating the acquisition of a hotel. In March 2023 came the announcement, totally by surprise, by Prime Minister Meloni, directly from Washington, where one of the first meetings was held with US President Joe Biden. On 18 May, Forti returned to Italy, to Pratica di Mare, managing the government to bring home a result that many had tried to achieve (from Conte to Letta, from Di Maio to Renzi) but in vain. And with the same diplomatic effort, Meloni also managed to bring back to Italy Patrick Zaki, the Egyptian student and activist who was attending a master’s degree course in Bologna in 2019. He was blocked and arrested by the Egyptian authorities because of an article he wrote on the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Again, years of centre-left governments brought no results and when Giorgia Meloni met Egyptian President al-Sisi in November 2022, the opposition was quick to criticise her, accusing her of putting economic interests before human rights. But only a few months later came the news: Zaki had been pardoned by al-Sisi and was able to return to Italy.
Exceptional outcomes
An executive, in short, studded with diplomatic successes. There would still be others to list: Italy’s new weight in Europe, convincing the EU to sign the treaties with Tunisia and Egypt, to change its mind on immigration by reinforcing the external borders, to propose new relations with Africa on the basis of the Mattei Plan, to appoint an Italian, Raffaele Fitto, as new executive vice-president of the European Commission. Giorgia Meloni convinced Hungary to send new aid to Kiev, with Orban’s veto blocking the EU procedure. During the G7, a Pontiff took part in the work for the first time and the seven big ones again supported Ukraine by unblocking frozen Russian assets. And still the fundamental dialogues opened with states such as China and India. Not bad for a government that was thought destined to fall in a few weeks…