“After the start of [Israeli military] operations in Gaza, the government immediately suspended all new export licenses, and all agreements signed after October 7th were not implemented,” the Italian leader stated during a debate at Italy’s Senate ahead of Thursday’s European Council summit.
Meloni told lawmakers that licenses authorized before Oct. 7 are being “analyzed on a case-by-case basis by the competent authority at the foreign ministry.”
“We have blocked everything,” the Italian premier declared, noting that the policies of her government are “much more restrictive than that applied by our partners—France, Germany and the United Kingdom.”
What? How did this “fact” surfaced only now almost by accident? It’s been a year and nobody knew Italy had frozen all deals?
The UK and Germany are still issuing new arms export licenses.
Italy fulfilled their running contracts from last year and (apparently) stopped everything afterwards because every case which was analyzed did not pass legal checks.