Italy wants to stop the ships of the Sophia mission, with the EU license plate and after the first hesitation due to the feeble European reaction, the government has decided to try to find a solution with its partners in the coming weeks. Yesterday in Vienna, writes La Stampa, the defiant statements by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini gave way to the diplomacy of Enzo Moavero Milanesi, according to whom the five-week deadline "granted" to the EU at the end of July "was not peremptory", but only "indicative".

And two episodes in particular showed the "mending" work that the foreign minister is trying painfully to carry out at the European tables. During yesterday's meeting, he approached Josep Borrell, the Spanish foreign minister. She took him by the arm and the two went away for a one-on-one chat. Relations between Rome and Madrid are very tense. Spain has become the main gateway to Europe (33.377 arrivals since the beginning of the year against 19.897 in Italy). Moavero has thus tried to reconnect with Borrell, recalling that the interests of Rome and Madrid coincide, so we should move together. The interlocutor, however, said he was convinced that the tones of challenge and the attempts to build an alliance with the governments of Eastern Europe risk compromising Italy's progress in the EU. Also for this reason, Spain is holding firmly to its alliance with Paris and Berlin. Moavero then tried to put things right also with Malta, going to his colleague Carmelo Abela and apologized for the threats arrived via the web to the Maltese ambassador in Italy. The Farnesina also published a tweet to distance itself from those “insulting and vulgar statements”. In this mending activity, the glimmers announced by Elisabetta Trenta have not been seen. The Minister of Defense had spoken of an opening on the part of Germany, an opening that has not yet been received.

The head of the Farnesina admitted that today there is no solution, but there is only "the common determination of all to get there". There will be some good ones at the next summit scheduled for 20 September, which will see all 28 leaders gathered in Salzburg.