Meloni to Brussels: energy or defense, but not both
Italy threatens to exit Europe's SAFE defense program unless Brussels extends budget flexibility to cover the energy crisis.
At a Glance
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sent a letter Monday to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen demanding that the EU extend its existing defense budget waiver to cover energy-related spending.
Rome is explicitly conditioning its participation in the SAFE program — the EU’s €150 billion ($163 billion at current exchange rates) joint borrowing scheme for defense — on obtaining that fiscal flexibility.
The European Commission has so far rejected any such extension, while fiscally conservative member states, led by Germany, remain firmly opposed.
A letter that reads like an ultimatum
The move is as calculated as it is risky. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister and a leading figure of the European national-conservative right, has chosen to put in writing what she has been saying behind closed doors for weeks: Italy cannot simultaneously back a collective European defense effort and absorb alone the energy shock that the Iran conflict is inflicting on its households and industrial base.
The letter, sent Monday evening to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — is blunt. Rome is requesting a temporary extension of the National Escape Clause — the provision that allows member states to deviate from EU budget rules under exceptional circumstances, currently applicable only to defense spending — to cover investments and emergency measures needed to address the ongoing energy crisis, without raising the existing deviation ceilings.
And if Brussels refuses? Meloni warns it would be “very difficult” for the Italian government to explain to the public a potential use of the SAFE program under the conditions currently envisaged.
A shock of historic proportions
To understand the political pressure bearing down on Rome, the scale of the energy disruption must be spelled out. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran in February 2026 and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz that followed, global energy markets have been in crisis. The EU estimates gas prices have risen 70% and oil prices 50%, generating an extra €13 billion bill on fossil fuel imports for the bloc.
Italy is among the most exposed countries. According to preliminary forecasts, Italian household energy and gas bills could rise 10% to 20% compared to pre-Iran crisis levels, with the heaviest pressure felt in Rome, Milan, and Naples. The country relies more heavily than most European peers on liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar — supplies that transit directly through the now-blocked strait.
Italy is also subject to an EU excessive-deficit procedure — a formal process that restricts a member state’s budget flexibility. Its fiscal room is close to zero. Without European backing, Meloni’s government faces a politically impossible equation: a fuel excise tax cut is set to expire on May 22, and the state of public finances makes an extension nearly impossible without breaching EU budget rules.
The leverage play: SAFE as a bargaining chip
The instrument Meloni is deploying as leverage — the SAFE program (Security Action for Europe) — requires some context for readers unfamiliar with EU mechanics. SAFE is a joint borrowing scheme backed by the EU budget, designed to strengthen European defense capabilities and help member states meet NATO’s more ambitious spending targets. Think of it as a common bond facility — somewhat analogous to the EU’s COVID-era recovery fund — but dedicated exclusively to defense procurement and military investment.
For the European Union, SAFE is not a peripheral program. It is a cornerstone of European strategic autonomy at a moment of acute geopolitical pressure. Italy’s participation — as one of the three largest economies in the eurozone — is indispensable to the program’s credibility. That is precisely the leverage Meloni’s approach seems to be targeting.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto had said on May 14 that he had written twice to Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti seeking clarity on how to proceed, as the Treasury’s approval was required. Meloni’s letter to von der Leyen effectively served as Rome’s direct answer to those internal tensions.
Italy’s request is technically an extension of an existing mechanism — not the creation of a new one. The National Escape Clause already allows deviations from budget rules for defense; Rome wants its scope broadened to include energy. That framing is central to Italy’s negotiating strategy: Brussels could not argue it was setting a dangerous new precedent, since the architecture would remain unchanged.
A coalition of convenience, fractures running deep
Meloni’s demand reveals less an isolated gambit than a symptom of the contradictions embedded in EU economic governance. France and Greece are pushing for something meaningfully different — new common debt issuance to address the effects of the energy crisis. Their surface-level convergence with Italy masks deep disagreements on institutional design.
Against them stand the so-called “frugal” states — the Netherlands, Austria, and above all Germany — who have flatly refused. A Commission spokesperson indicated the institution had no plans to include the National Escape Clause among the options available to address the energy crisis.
The Commission’s position has its own logic: opening the deviation clause to energy risks creating a precedent that would progressively hollow out the Stability and Growth Pact — the EU’s fiscal rulebook, broadly comparable to the U.S. federal debt ceiling framework in its role as a constitutional constraint on government spending. But that position is politically difficult to sustain when democratically elected governments are being asked to choose between budget discipline and protecting their citizens from an exogenous shock.
Tellingly, sources within the Lega — the coalition partner led by Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister — indicated the letter aligned entirely with the party’s own recommendations.
If it fails to find a coherent answer to the Iran-driven energy crunch, it is not just Italy’s participation in SAFE that is at risk. It is the credibility of European economic governance itself.
The bottom line
The real issue is not Meloni’s letter. It is the question she is forcing onto the table: can you ask member states to commit collectively to defense — with the budgetary sacrifices that entails — while denying them the same solidarity when an energy shock hits their households just as hard as an armed conflict? Europe deployed exceptional fiscal instruments to respond to COVID and to the Russian gas crisis. Whether it can do so again — and on what terms — will define not just Italy’s role in SAFE, but the limits of what European solidarity actually means.
Sources: Euronews · ANSA · Reuters · Bruegel · IEA · BISI