ITALY PERSPECTIVE

Rome covered the Hungarian veto's collapse with the particular attention of a country navigating between European solidarity and historical closeness to Moscow. ANSA headlined that 'the veto on the Kyiv loan falls, new sanctions on Moscow,' placing both events on equal footing. The article detailed the 20th sanctions package targeting Russia's energy, banking and trade sectors. Italy, which has launched a national plan against 'caro energia' -- soaring energy costs -- with state aid and energy vouchers, is living the crisis in its bones. The European Commission proposed a new state-aid framework for the most exposed sectors, greater coordination on oil and gas reserves, energy vouchers, and reduced electricity excise taxes for vulnerable households. Rome is already implementing some of these measures. The Meloni context is decisive: the prime minister broke with Trump over Russian sanctions the previous week, a shift that makes Italian support for the Ukrainian 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 tightrope walk.