Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio on
Friday called for the government to adopt a US-style national
security strategy, prompting his government partner and other
Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini to demur and say he would "hold
dear the Italian system".
Di Maio said that "we need to start moving on prevention, and
not only repression.
"Italy needs to start giving itself a National Security
Strategy on the US model.
He said Defence Minister Elisabetta Trenta was "already
working on it, guided by the premier's office.
"We must proceed in an interconnected way between the defence
ministry, the interior ministry, the transport and
infrastructure ministry and other ministries, with the premier's
office and with the coordination of the security intelligence
department (DIs)."
Salvini reacted by saying "when I hear talk of an American
model, I say that I hold dear the Italian model of security: the
work of our intelligence services and of our security forces can
give lessons to all.
"Then, of course, you never stop learning".
Salvini said he did not feel he had been "told off" by Di
Maio.
Hew said there had been "great" results on the mafia, drugs,
rackets and human trafficking.
The interior ministry issued a statement saying "the Italian
system works, as shown by the police response to a bus hijack
terror ordeal on Wednesday.
Trenta said "Salvini says our (intelligence services) are the
best in the world? But of course, we also think our intelligence
apparatus, our soldiers and our police forces are the best in
the world.
"But be careful about taking their merits, because it is a
thing on which politics has often slipped up.
"Politics gives a vision".
Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said his ministry was
working with the interior and defence ministries and the
government "is working in synergy on the National Security
Strategy model".
Toninelli stressed the importance of protecting strategic
infrastructures from "fresh threats"
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