In an interview to Euronews, Five Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte said that the Commission “is exaggerating the Russian threat” to boost military expenditure
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The rearmament plan just presented by the European Commission and aiming at unlocking up to €800 billion is considered a total waste of money by the former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
In an interview with Euronews, Conte claims that ReArm EU means “throwing money away to allow all the member states to continue increasing military spending in an uncoordinated and disorderly manner”, instead of boosting a “serious common defense project”, which in his view should reach a strategic autonomy with “a major step” in EU’s political integration.
Conte’s Five Star Movement organised a protest outside and inside the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, showing peace flags and demanding the funds foreseen for military expenditure should be spent on public health and other priorities.
The Left group in the European Parliament, to which Five Star Movement belongs, believes that the plan will only benefit weapons manufacturers and arms dealers, and criticises what it calls the sidelining of the European Parliament in the approval process.
The former Italian prime minister challenges the idea of “peace through strength”: despite considering Russians as a threat, Conte believes that the EU should not "fuel tensions with Russia” but instead “being in the first line to build a future based on dialogue."
Furthermore, he accused the European Commission of “exaggerating the Russian threat to justify a waste of public money”.
Siding with Ukraine, but without military aid
According to Conte, the EU should have a voice in the peace negotiations between Russia and the US on war in Ukraine, which will be a major challenge. “It will be extremely difficult to defend Ukraine's position, because, clearly, Russia's negotiating power has increased.”
In the Italian domestic debate, his party has long advocated stopping military aid to Ukraine. However, Conte rejects being labeled a pro-Russian. "We have nothing to do with the positions of the most radical right-wing parties. We are not pro-Putin, we have condemned him for the aggression against Ukraine from the very beginning. We have no ideological contamination that could mislead us."
While he backed the EU sanctions to Russia, he believes that they did not reach the target. “We were told that the Russian economy would collapse. We were even told that they had run out of bullets, out of weapons, and that they were struggling on a military level. All lies. We must acknowledge that the Russian economy had a 4.1% GDP growth in 2024."
Asked about the security guarantees to provide to Ukraine, Conte does not want to put forward any concrete answers, claiming that it would be premature to discuss this now.
He is strongly against the idea, floated by current Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of extending to Ukraine NATO’s Article 5 - its collective defence clause - without the country being granted actual membership of the alliance.
“This solution is unacceptable: it would mean that from a proxy war that we have been fighting up to now, tomorrow we would switch to a direct war in favour of Ukraine, instead of working on a peace negotiation. A total madness.”