“For us, Norway is a leading partner in Europe. It certainly is for the role everyone knows in diversifying Italian energy supplies: it is our fourth gas supplier. But it is especially so for the enormous potential this partnership can express in other domains as well.” Giorgia Meloni speaks from Oslo, invited by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, where she arrived nearly 15 years after the last visit of an Italian Prime Minister and in the year Italy and Norway celebrate the centenary of the Arctic flight of the airship Norge, carried out in 1926 by an Italian-Norwegian crew led by Umberto Nobile and Roald Amundsen. “I bring home,” says the premier, “a comprehensive industrial and strategic partnership, whose fundamental pillar is energy but extends to other areas all crucial for security.”
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Focus on critical raw materials
The domains the premier refers to are “advanced technologies, the strategic infrastructures accompanying the transformation of our energy systems, up to the issue of critical raw materials, which is particularly strategic at this time. The resources Norway has, I think of the Fen field, open great opportunities. We want to build shorter, safer, more resilient supply chains to external shocks, thus creating our strategic autonomy and growth opportunities for our peoples.”
“Expanded” security at the center of the meeting
Meloni sees “many opportunities” also for the defense industry: “We are part of the same Atlantic family, we must build supply chains that support our expanded security needs over time.” The same applies to shipbuilding, the submarine dimension, and space, where – the premier recalls – “our companies have solid and complementary skills.”
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Industrial partnerships
At dinner, in the evening, companies from the two countries will meet directly. Objective: “Develop the untapped potential.” The premier cites the merger between the Italian Saipem and the Norwegian Subsea7 as an example: it will lead to the birth of a global giant in energy and offshore services, “the second in the world.” Støre, for his part, recalled Eni’s commitment to gas research and exploration activities in the Arctic, “a partner with very important skills.”
Crises and the gaze on the contested Arctic
The discussion on geopolitics focused on collaborations in Africa and the Arctic, increasingly contested by the great powers USA, Russia, and China. “We are two nations,” Meloni claims, “that manage to see the board as a whole. And it is important,” she warns, “in a season like this, where threats, like opportunities, come from every side, from every corner.”
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