Vannacci and Monti Set for Cernobbio Debate on Europe, but the Duel’s Ending Is Not Written

Mario Monti set one condition before agreeing to face General Roberto Vannacci in Cernobbio: the debate had to be public. Everyone, including those outside the forum, should be able to follow it, he said, breaking with the event’s usual Chatham House rule of confidential conversations.

The encounter at Villa d’Este is unlikely to be easy for either man. Vannacci, a former military attaché at Italy’s embassy in Moscow, is known for positions centered on remigration, national identity, rapid rapprochement with Russia and the idea of purely Italian families. At Cernobbio, he will not be able to rely on his usual artificial-intelligence videos to drive those themes.

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That the debate would be public and everyone could follow it from outside as well.

The decision to include him has already caused friction. Carlo Calenda of the centrist Action party withdrew in protest at the choice to open the forum to Vannacci, founder of Futuro nazionale. Forum patron Valerio De Molli defended the program, saying Villa d’Este has always hosted different views so audiences can assess them for themselves.

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On Roberto Vannacci and Europe, we know one thing and do not know another.

For Monti, the confrontation carries a personal and political weight. He spent a decade as a European commissioner in Brussels and built much of his economic work around strengthening the European Union and integrating Italy more closely with it. As prime minister, he sought to keep Italy in the euro and protect the single currency during the debt crisis.

Monti says Vannacci’s proposals conflict with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which became fully part of the treaties with the Lisbon Treaty. But he also wants to test what Vannacci and Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old president of France’s National Rally, would actually do if their nationalist movements entered government. The question, Monti argues, is how they would manage relations between Italy and France and shape European policy in Brussels.

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What we know is that what the general proposes violates the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty has been fully part of the treaties themselves.