According to the leader of the Italian Action (Azione) party, Carlo Calenda, the Emma Bonino-led Europa+ party received one and a half million euros from György Soros for the parliamentary election campaign against the right-wing party - Calenda said in the chapters of the book about the elections published in advance on Tuesday.
According to Calenda, before the parliamentary elections on September 25, the left-wing Europa+ party led by Emma Bonino made an alliance not only with the Democratic Party (PD).
Based on his statement, he also agreed with the American businessman György Soros that the Action led by Calenda would not have a place in the coalition of left-wing parties: according to the plan, the Democratic Party (PD), Europa+, the Italian Left (SI) and the Greens formed a common front, which opposed the centre-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni.
That's why Europa+ received one and a half million euros from Soros, said Carlo Calenda, according to whose account Benedetto Della Vedova, the general secretary of Europa+, told him all of this.
Calenda added that György Soros made it a condition that the left-wing parties carry out an "anti-fascist" campaign, that is, they label right-wing politicians as fascists. According to him, the condition of the financing was that Giorgia Meloni was confronted with the person of PD General Secretary Enrico Letta, who built his entire campaign on anti-Viktor Orbán.
Carlo Calenda stated, that is why Action said no to the alliance with the center-left parties and ran independently in the election.
The president of the Action, Bruno Vespa, a well-known political journalist, made a statement in his latest book. The volume A nagy vihar about the elections will be published on Friday, but some of its chapters were previously published on Tuesday.
Benedetto Della Vedova also responded in the book. He emphasized that Europa+ as a whole did not receive funding, but "some candidates" of the party received "direct support" from György Soros to cover the costs of the election campaign.
"The philanthropic billionaire of Hungarian origin has long shared and supported the European values we represent, our fight for human rights, the rule of law. We are proud that some of our candidates asked for and received, of course, interest-free support," said Benedetto Dalla Vedova.
Europa+ achieved less than three percent in the election, so it did not enter the parliament on its own. He was no luckier in a coalition either, as his candidates, including former European Union Commissioner Emma Bonino, former Italian Foreign Minister, and Benedetto Della Vedova, could not win a mandate in the new parliament even on the joint left-wing lists. The center-left coalition led by the PD was 18 points behind the center-right coalition.
MTI
Photo: MTI/European Parliament/Philippe Buissin
