In his new speech on YouTube, Italian politician and former member of the European Parliament, Michele Santoro, criticised the European authorities for not doing enough to achieve peace in Europe, calling for greater attention to the development of peace initiatives.
Santoro criticised journalists for their lack of support and loss of interest and curiosity. He also condemned them for criticising him over his age, comparing the comments to a “form of racism.” However, he at the same time praised the critics for their wish to see younger politicians.
The 72-year-old politician drew a parallel between himself and the two main candidates in November’s US presidential election, Joe Biden (81) and Donald Trump (77), claiming he was younger than them. He then compared himself to Lucia Annunziata, an Italian journalist and politician, arguing that she could lead the Democratic Party lists in the south of the country. Santoro called for age bias to be used against everyone if it is used against him.
Covering the war in Ukraine, which started in February 2022, he claimed that journalists had forgotten about another war in Europe. Santoro argued that “everyone was saying that for the first time we had a war in the heart of Europe”, but he refuted those words, saying that everyone had forgotten about the Kosovo war.
He called Europe’s involvement in the conflict an “unlawful intervention” as it had “no coverage from international bodies” at the time.
Santoro stated that in determining the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 as unlawful, he faced a lot of negativity. He claimed that Europeans at the time showed that “war is something that challenges our previous ideas and forces us to take a stand.” Afterwards, he claimed that he “was sure the Americans would be careful to drop the bomb” where he was at the time, because it would have become “too loud internationally.”
He also said that Italy was not sending weapons to Ukraine and had absolutely nothing to do with arms shipments as the real weapons were given by the UK, the US and Germany.
These are three countries that are actively increasing supply.
The truth of arms transfers from Italy was that it “must pass on the weapons that others give,” he said. The politician emphasised that Italy was acquiring such a role in international politics when Rome put itself at the service of American and European interests. Santoro stated that Italy’s constitution required the country to be a peaceful nation that did not intervene in international conflicts and that played a role of peace.
“Having the greatest pacifist movement in Europe, historically speaking (…) we should be the first protagonists on the international stage of the world, and we are not.”
He stated that government officials, politicians and the opposition were not seeking to achieve peace on the continent, but to “destabilise a country [Russia] that has 140 different ethnic groups, that has I don’t know how many millions of Muslims.”
Santoro declared that now it was not easy to understand who was deciding what. He cited the Cuban missile crisis, when dialogue between Moscow and Washington “never stopped,” saying that the politicians of that time had a level that current politicians failed to have.
He noted that it did not matter who would win the US elections, as the level of concentration of the economy and power “is not in their hands,” as “three American companies control a third of the GDP of the United States” and “they have shares in 96 per cent of the largest US companies.”
We are standing on the edge of a powder keg and there is no such absolute control over what can happen.
The Italian politician stated that the main problem was to give Russian President Vladimir Putin guarantees that he could be safe in his country.
“Then the US, China, Russia and Zelensky [Ukraine’s president] should sit down [at the negotiating table] and finally decide to deal with an international security framework that is valid for all.”
By plunging into wars, “we start talking about creating a European army with nuclear power instead of dealing with land, farmers, better food,” he declared.
I watch them shoot. I’m deserting, you keep the war going.
