Guy Verhofstadt Insults Giuseppe Conte in the European Parliament

Guy Verhofstadt is a Flemish politician who currently leads the parliamentary group Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the European Parliament. Mr. Verhofstadt is the founder of the Spinelli Group, which is named for the Italian Communist Altiero Spinelli, one of the fathers of the European Union.

Mr. Verhofstadt is best-known, however, as one of the most dedicated promoters of “an ever-closer union” in the EU, and often acts as a bully-boy against any politician from any member state that acts against the interests of the EU, as he sees it. His most recent targets have been in Hungary and Italy, for obvious reasons.

Giuseppe Conte is the current prime minister of Italy for the coalition government of the M5S and the Lega. In the following video Mr. Verhofstadt accuses Mr. Conte of being a puppet for Matteo Salvini (Lega) and Luigi Di Maio (M5S). Mr. Conte’s response follows.

Many thanks to He Ha for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00   That’s why, Mr. Conte, today I am sad watching Italy’s political degeneration.
00:09   Bad governance has gotten worse under your government.
00:18   That’s the problem. Under Salvini and Di Maio.
00:24   The real chiefs of this government.
00:29   A government that has often an anti-European stance, Mr. Conte.
00:34   So my question to you is, Prime Minister Conte: “How long will you go on being Salvini’s and Di Maio’s puppet?”
00:47   A politician here, who is supposed to lead a parliamentarian group called me — who represent the Italian people — a puppet.
00:57   I am not a puppet. I don’t feel like one.
01:01   I proudly represent an entire nation.
01:06   I proudly represent the Italian people’s desire for change.
01:14   I proudly express the synthesis of a government that is no puppet because it doesn’t obey certain financial lobbies.
01:28   And doesn’t obey business committees.
01:30   Puppets are those who obey certain financial lobbies, certain powerful corporations and business committees.
 

8 thoughts on “Guy Verhofstadt Insults Giuseppe Conte in the European Parliament

  1. Growing up in a neighbourhood with many Italians I have learned that when an Italian is right, and he knows it, you cannot win an argument with him. They are generally less inhibited than northern Europeans and their ability to add great verbal colour and poetic rhythm is unrivaled. I look forward to more such victories for our Italian friends.

  2. As usual with lefties, Mr Verhofstadt is projecting his own failings and weaknesses into Mr Conte. As a generalisation, lefties do this all the time and probably are too corrupt or too stupid to acknowledge that they do so.

  3. It is such a shame, that Guy Verhofstadt, founded in 2010 a political group inspired by a convicted criminals like Altiero Spinelli.

    On 3 June 1927, Altiero Spinelli was arrested and sentenced by the Special Court for the defense of the State to sixteen (16) years and eight months in prison, after a year already spent in San Vittore. In 1937 he was transferred to Rome but, while awaiting the release moment, he received the abrupt news of the transfer to Ventotene island. This traitor has been treated like a hero by European elites.

    Here is a short bio of Guy Verhofstadt:
    http://www.spinelligroup.eu/people/guy-verhofstadt

    In 2016, the three prime ministers of Germany, France and Italy met in Ventotene to pay homage to the memory of a traitor.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/21/ventotene-summit-france-italy-germany-eu-brexit-vote
    https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/opinion/ventotene-the-symbolism-of-the-renzi-hollande-merkel-summit/
    https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/nicola-lagioia/2016/08/28/ventotene-manifesto-europa

    • Reading the description of the Spinelli group, it’s not just the life story of its namesake that is revealing, but its membership: its leading figures are former German, French and Italian communist/anarchist terrorists. I only say “former” because these guys now support legislative devastation, rather than overt bomb-throwing.

      For the record, Spinelli was a Communist Trotskyite, as opposed to a Stalinist. Stalin was for all his brutality, at least a nationalist first. Trotsky was every bit as brutal as Stalin, but pursued his brutality more for globalist, communist principals than for any concrete nationalism.

      • I do not know most of the members of this group. Some of them are for sure minor figures, and there are a few not from the traditional former communist (which converted today into liberal democracism) political parties:

        http://www.spinelligroup.eu/about-us

        http://www.spinelligroup.eu/mep-spinelli-group

        For example:
        – Barbara Matera is from FI (Berlusconi) (which is within EPP at europarl, and has always been tied to Lega in Italy)
        – Vittorio Prodi is in the ALDE group at europarl (the same of Guy Verhofstadt) brother of former italian prime minister Romano Prodi, he was elected within PD (Democratic Party in italy)
        – Luigi Berlinguer is a former italian minister, he was member of PCI (Italian communist party)
        – Sergio Cofferati is former trade union leader (another real old style communist), he was elected with PD

        I did not check them all, but most of the members are now in PD (Democratic Party in italy) (at europarl within S&D and also ALDE) which is now at the opposition. So it is not strange that they use some foreign people to do this kind of garbage accusation to the italian prime minister.

        What it matters is that many of these people, at least with italian name, will not be relected next time in May.

    • I read the bio of Verhofstadt. I note that like so many of his contemporaries, he’s never had a proper job.

      • He did. He was twice PM of Belgium.

        He is also the Emperor of U-Turns. THIRTY YEARS AGO he was Budget Minister and so frugal, so classical-liberal (indeed, he wrote ‘Het Burgermanifest’, a defense of classical liberalism) that he was called the ‘Baby Thatcher’. He was so ‘rightwing’ for Belgian norms, that the very powerful socialist and ‘Christian’ ‘Democrat’ unions ousted him. He spent the entire nineties in the opposition, reinvented single-handedly the (Flemish) liberal party (keep in mind that in those days, ‘liberal’ in Europe meant rightwing) and finally became PM after a food scandal which cost the ruling ‘Christian’ ‘Democrat’ PM his job.

        With his liberal party, the VLD, he went into a coalition with Greens and Socialists. Du jamais vu.

        And then… we have a saying here, ‘He who sleeps with dogs gets lice’. From his co-governance with leftists Verhofstadt emerged with a complete personality turnaround. The Verhofstadt of the 2000s and now is the complete opposite of the Verhofstadt of the 80s and 90s. It’s amazing.

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