What has happened in recent days is an unapologetic snapshot of Europe’s contradictions, but also an indication of a possible solution to increasingly obvious difficulties. While Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was organizing her two-day trip to the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar – in a frantic search for more gas and oil after slowing down the development of renewables in Italy, in Paris Emmanuel Macron was cashing in on a result of a completely different kind: through patient diplomatic work, a French ship got the green light to pass the Iranian-controlled strait. And at the same time , the Spanish premier could afford to distance himself sharply from Trump and Netanyahu’s war thanks to the consolidation of clean energy that served to reduce Spain’s dependence on fossil fuels and lower its utility bills.
On the one hand, there are those who ignore the risks produced by the recurrence of oil- and gas-related energy shocks, looking each time for a supplier that often turns out to be as unreliable as the previous one. On the other are those who try to build a continent-friendly diplomatic model and an energy system that can structurally reduce foreign dependence.
Angelo Bonelli, co-leader of the Greens-Left Alliance, called Meloni’s mission to the Gulf “a journey of political desperation.” The Italian premier left with the goal of securing new energy contracts, reducing Italy’s exposure to market volatility. But the question no one in the government seems to want to ask is: Why are we still here, negotiating from a position of weakness, instead of making energy transition our insurance policy?
Italy has the sun, wind, research capabilities, and an entrepreneurial system capable of meeting European energy security goals. It is a wealth of resources that would place it, if exploited, among the strongest energy countries in Europe. Instead, according to Legambiente‘s latest report, more than 1,700 authorizations for renewable energy plants are blocked by the current government. Companies ready to invest, technologies available, manpower trained: all at a standstill.
Meanwhile, Istat data reveal that the real income of Italian households has declined. Nearly one in four people is at risk of poverty, social exclusion or low work intensity. And big energy companies, at a time when energy prices have devastated household budgets, have accumulated tens of billions in untaxed extra-profits.
Macron and dialogue as an instrument of power
The contrast with French diplomacy is stark. The case of the ship that was granted transit through Iranian waters is not an isolated incident: it is an expression of a broader strategy by which Paris seeks to maintain open channels with regional actors that Washington would like to isolate or bomb. It is not a position without ambiguity-French-Iranian relations have a complex and controversial history-but it testifies to one specific thing: France does not simply follow others’ agendas. It builds its own.
This ability to engage in dialogue with multiple interlocutors, including uncomfortable ones, is exactly the kind of strategic autonomy that the European Union is struggling to build as a collective system but that some member states are cultivating individually. France does so from positions of relative strength: its civilian nuclear power makes it more energy independent, its defense industry grants it weight in international negotiations, its diplomatic tradition ensures its credibility. Italy does not have all this, but it could build its equivalent – energy independence from renewables – if only it had the political will.
Instead, while Macron negotiates, Meloni appears in the Gulf in a posture that resembles more that of an anxious buyer than that of an equal partner. The risk is clear: The more Italy ties itself to long-term Gulf fossil supplies, the more difficult and costly it becomes to reverse course. Each new supply contract is a noose that tightens the transition window.
Sánchez and the sovereignty that comes with the wind
Then there is the Spanish case, which takes on the value of a concrete lesson in this comparison. Pedro Sánchez has been able to afford, in recent years, a position of relative distance from pressure from the White House and Gulf producers precisely because Spain has invested heavily in renewable energy. Today the Iberian country has one of the highest shares of electricity production from clean sources in Europe, and Spanish consumers benefit from energy tariffs that are among the lowest on the continent.
It is not just an environmental or economic issue. It is a question of independence. Those who produce their own energy do not have to beg for supplies, are not blackmailed by geopolitical crises, are not forced to fly to Riyadh or Doha every time the gas market coughs. Sánchez can afford to maintain some autonomy of judgment on Trump’s policies, to not automatically align on every Atlantic dossier, precisely because Spain has reduced its structural dependence on fossil fuels and thus on the countries that produce them.
The Spanish example is all the more significant because it does not come from a particularly wealthy country, nor from a particularly stable political system. It comes from a strategic choice made continuously over time, through different governments, with coordinated public and private investment. A choice that today pays concrete dividends, not only in kilowatt-hours but in freedom of international action.
Italy between Trump and the Gulf: the double vice of dependence
The Italian government today finds itself squeezed into a position of dual dependence: on the axis with Washington on the one hand, on the Middle East energy producers on the other. Two dependencies that feed off each other, because those without energy autonomy cannot afford to clash with any of their suppliers, even when their interests diverge from national ones.
Trump meanwhile sells more U.S. liquefied gas and more weapons: the market reorganizes around others’ weaknesses. And Europe thus risks finding itself dependent on the United States for military security and the Gulf for energy, leaving its own citizens with the final bill for this double subordination.
Italy in this scenario is particularly exposed. It has an energy mix that is still heavily dependent on gas, supplies spread over multiple corridors but none fully secure, and a government that has chosen to slow the transition rather than speed it up.
The possible recipe, and the absence of willpower
Italy could change course in no time. All it would take is to unblock pending authorizations for renewable plants. Put in place a serious industrial plan for energy efficiency-Italian buildings are among the most energy-intensive in Europe-and an incentive policy that focuses on distributed production, energy communities, and storage. Not for ideological reasons related to environmentalism, but for brutally pragmatic reasons: every kilowatt-hour produced in Italy is a kilowatt-hour that we do not have to buy in Doha or Houston, a piece of real sovereignty that no international treaty can take away from us.
Instead, there is no sign of it. The Meloni government has made opposition to renewables-through bureaucratic hurdles, de facto moratoria, landscape plans used as blocking tools-one of its most consistent policies. The result is that Italy arrives at the 2026 energy crisis in the same structural position it was in in 2022, after the war in Ukraine: vulnerable, dependent, forced to chase emergency solutions instead of building stable alternatives.
Meloni’s trip to the Gulf is not a tactical mistake: it is the logical consequence of bad strategic choices accumulated over the years. Until Italy decides to seriously invest in its energy independence, it will be condemned to do exactly what it does today – fly from one emir to another, beg for contracts, smile at those who have the gas we have been unable to produce ourselves.
Meanwhile, the wind is blowing. The sun is shining. And renewable construction sites are waiting for permission to start.
