The left-wing Italian government has spent €1.57 billion on supplies from Chinese companies during the Wuhan virus pandemic.
From January 31st to November 17th, the leftist coalition spent €4.73 billion, much of which went on medical supplies and other items, with 36.25 per cent of the cash going to foreign companies.
Of the 1.71 billion euros spent abroad, 1.57 billion, or 91.7 per cent, went to Chinese-owned firms. South Korean companies were the second-largest foreign beneficiary of the pandemic in Italy, earning €29 million, newspaper Il Giornale reports.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the national conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, criticised the fact a third of the cash spent during the crisis ended up with Chinese companies.
Meloni labelled the figures “disturbing” and claimed they revealed an “absolute dependence” of the government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing.
“The misfortune within the misfortune is that while having to face a health, social, and economic emergency, the government was totally subservient to foreign interests,” she said.
“This is the worst political class in the Italian republic’s history: incapable, visionless, enslaved to foreign interests, and animated only by the desire to have a career and secure their seats,” she added.
Italy and many other European countries looked to Chinese suppliers for medical goods in the early days of the pandemic but found large amounts of the personal protection equipment (PPE) they purchased to be defective.
A report from The Spectator‘s U.S. edition in April claimed that China had forced Italy to buy coronavirus supplies that Italy itself had donated to the country just weeks before.
In October, the British government was revealed to have spent upwards of £320 million to companies linked to the Beijing regime, which was largely spent on PPE and ventilators.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.