New aid package for Kyiv ready says Tajani, responding to Salvini

(ANSA) - ROME, 26 OTT - Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Monday that a new package of aid is ready for Ukraine, responding to his fellow deputy premier, Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, who said he would seek to stop Italy's economic and military support for Kyiv after being re-elected leader of the right-wing League party on Sunday. "My position is well known: we stand with Ukraine and will continue to support it for as long as necessary," Tajani, the leader of the centre-right Forza Italia party, told reporters in Milan. "The next military aid package is already ready, and we will send it to Kyiv as soon as possible." Salvini fended off a challenge from Senator and former tourism minister Massimo Garavaglia to retain the leadership of the League at an extraordinary congress in Milan, winning by 465 votes to 146. Salvini had come under fire from moderates in the party unhappy with it shifting further to the Right and those who think it should return to its traditional focus on northern Italy. MP Simonetta Matone said Monday she was leaving the League to join Forza Italia because "I am opposed to sovereignist tendencies and to extreme, unachievable positions". Salvini, 53, took over what was the Northern League in 2013 and dropped the 'Northern' part of its name to make it simply 'the League' to strengthen its appeal nationwide. The late Umberto Bossi founded the Northern League in 1989 by forming an alliance of regional parties. Under Bossi, the party initially campaigned for independence for northern Italy - the Republic of Padania - under the slogan "Roma Ladrona" ("Thieving Rome"). But it subsequently softened its demands to calls for greater autonomy for the country's wealthier northern regions. (ANSA).
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