Italy has chosen the position that Rome often likes: to be there without being bound. Participating in Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ (BoP) on Gaza as an observer allows one to stay within the decision-making perimeter (or presumed so) without assuming formal obligations and without paying the political and legal costs of full membership. It is an understandable calculation. But in foreign policy, calculations come at a steep price: reputation. And the reputation that this move risks consolidating is not that of the ‘smartest’, but of the country that, when the stakes are raised, prefers tactical ambiguity to strategic coherence.

A variable geometry Europe on the Board of Peace

The first thing to clarify – for intellectual honesty, beyond propaganda – is that the EU does not have a clear and single position on the BoP. There is a range of postures, reflecting real divisions and diverging interests: it is the typical effect of a bloc that does not yet have a common foreign policy because it does not (yet) have an institutional architecture capable of supporting it.

The European Commission participates as an observer, precisely in order not to fully legitimise a controversial format, keeping one foot in and one foot out. France and Germany, on the other hand, do not intend to join as members, pointing out doubts on governance and on the compatibility of the format with the UN framework (same position as the other large ‘willing’ countries UK and Canada); Berlin has also invoked constitutional constraints in rejecting the ‘current’ set-up, while leaving open the willingness to work with the US on alternative solutions. Romania and Cyprus chose, like Italy, the role of observers: a cautious choice, but also easily read as ‘adaptive’. Hungary and Bulgaria are more open to membership, confirming that the BoP mainly attracts those who want to mark a direct relationship with Trump even at the cost of friction within the EU (it remains to be seen whether and how they will contribute the famous billion). Poland says no in the current conditions.

So Italy is not an exception in form (that of observer), but it becomes one in substance, because the choice of observation is more of an expedient than a political lever.

The Italian-style observer: presence without cost, influence without guarantees

According to many voices in the parliamentary majority, the Italian line would be defensible on the operational level because it allows access to the tables on reconstruction and stabilisation, avoids formal commitments (which are moreover unconstitutional, given the unequal nature of the organisation that is somehow asked to cede sovereignty), but signals to Washington Italy’s willingness not to sabotage the initiative.

It would, in short, be a low-cost and highly informative presence, allowing a sensitive dossier to be followed closely without assuming binding obligations. The problem, however, is less in the mechanics and more in the perception. If the message that comes through is ‘we cannot due to constitutional constraints, but there is no alternative‘, the posture does not appear negotiating: it appears accommodating. And accommodation, in Trumpian grammar, is often read as a willingness to follow the American frame and certainly not to condition it.

The blind spot: European coherence and deterrence

The real question to ask is not ‘what does Trump think of us?’ It is: what do the other Europeans – those with whom we share physical space, a market, a currency and quite a bit of public debt – infer about how we stand on the most sensitive dossiers?

It is here that the BoP is welded to an issue that, in recent weeks, is even more revealing: the European nuclear shield, or more generally European deterrence. While an explicit debate is re-emerging in Europe on the idea of strengthening the European component of deterrence in coordination with NATO, Italy tends to cool down and downsize. The line expressed by Defence Minister Guido Crosetto values the continuity of the US umbrella as the ‘best security’. At that point, the pattern becomes readable even by those who do not like dietrology: on an American and politically marked format such as the BoP, Italy ‘stands by’, even if as an observer; on a European dossier designed to reduce vulnerability and strategic unpredictability, Italy ‘slows down’ or minimises. This is not prudence, it is an incomprehensible form of asymmetry: more elasticity towards Washington, more timidity towards the European initiative. In the long run, this is the quickest way to get the label of intermittent and unreliable partner sewn on itself.

The mark of infamy that threatens to impose itself

If we look at the short term, Italy can even claim pragmatism: we defend interests, we sit at the table, we avoid constraints. But the outcome is dramatically different: we are unreliable because we turn ambiguity into method. The result is a foreign policy that seems to say ‘we don’t choose, we adapt’. And continuous adaptation produces inconsistency.