Over the weekend, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made the shock announcement that she will be taking Italy into Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” as an observer. She wants the country to be a full member, she said, but limits in Italy’s constitution forbid it. Therefor, for now, she’s doing the closest thing to membership that she can. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani (who is a former EU commissioner and a member of the centre-right EPP group) will be representing Italy at the Board of Peace inaugural meeting in Washington on Thursday. While the board’s mission is ostensibly to rebuild Gaza, the White House has made it clear they view its remit as much wider and they are aiming to use it to take down the United Nations.
It was a shock announcement because an understanding had supposedly been reached at the non-summit on 23 January in Brussels that EU countries would not participate. Only the recalcitrant countries of Hungary and Bulgaria have joined the board so far. Meloni appears to be trying to have it both ways by creating the ‘observer’ status for herself (no such observer status was mentioned in the board’s founding documents) so that she both placates Trump and can technically keep her word to the EU and not fall afoul of the Italian constitution. Trump has threatened to punish countries who don’t join the board and pay him the $1 billion membership fee - for instance threatening 200% tariffs on French wine if Macron doesn’t join.
Meloni’s announcement, apparently not coordinated with the EU, seems to have sent European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen scrambling yesterday. Concerned that the EU would be cut out of the loop if Italy is the only big European country at the Board’s inaugural meeting in Washington on Thursday, she has decided