ITALY PERSPECTIVE

Rome covers the fall of the Hungarian veto with the particular attention of a country navigating between European solidarity and historical proximity to Moscow. ANSA headlines that "the veto on the Kyiv loan falls, new sanctions on Moscow," a phrasing that places both events on equal footing. The article details that the 20th sanctions package targets Russian energy, banking, and commercial sectors. Italy, which has launched a national plan against "caro energia" (the energy price surge) with state aid and energy vouchers, feels the crisis acutely. The European Commission has proposed a new state aid framework for the most exposed sectors, increased coordination on gas and oil reserves, energy vouchers, and cuts to electricity levies for vulnerable families. Rome is already implementing some of these measures. The Meloni context is determining: the Prime Minister broke with Trump on Russian sanctions the previous week, a turn that makes Italian support for the Ukraine loan politically coherent but economically costly. Italy remains under the EU's excessive deficit procedure—financing Ukraine and protecting Italian households simultaneously is a budgetary balancing act.