The situation in Ukraine, migration policies, both of which will be the focus of the European Council in the coming days. But it is, above all, on economic issues that Giorgia Meloni hits hard, in her usual communications to Parliament preceding each European summit: the now long-standing issue of the ESM, the European solidarity mechanism that so far only Italy has not ratified; and then the announced new rate hike by the ECB, considered more of a harm than the solution. "I do not consider it useful to feed controversy about mechanisms such as the ESM," thunders the Prime Minister, and in the only passage in 40 minutes the tone definitely rises, "What is important in the governance discussion is to discuss a whole package of instruments. Even before it is a question of merit, a question of method on how to defend the Italian national interest". Getting into specifics shortly afterwards will be Vice-Premier Antonio Tajani, who in long chat with reporters in the Transatlantic reflects, "I have always been in favor of the ESM, then came the Recovery Fund,"adding, "The regulation of the ESM does not provide for any kind of control, it is purely intergovernmental and whoever leads the Mes, that is the strongest country, does whatever they want. We have always said to submit the ESM to the control of the European Parliament by forcing the President to go periodically before the committees and in front of the Chamber, as the President of the ECB is doing today: I don't understand why the ECB has to do this and the ESM does not". And as for the "package" approach, in the package should be, for example, "banking union, tax harmonization: why are they not done? When putting money on the Mes, one also wants to affect, to know what the guarantees are". For Giorgia Meloni, "inflation takes the form of a real hidden tax that affects above all the weakest, and we cannot fail to consider the risk that the rise in rates may hit the pockets of citizens more than inflation, that the cure is worse than the evil". A strong attack came on President Christine Lagarde, but Tajani himself specifies that "it is our right to criticize: the European Central Bank is autonomous, but I am free to say that making an announcement a month earlier about raising rates is wrong, because this way we damage the real economy. The ECB must serve the real economy, not the other way around. We haven't said Lagarde has to go, but we have the right to criticize, because Lagarde is not the gospel".