The interior minister who unleashed chaos in the EU by closing Italian harbours to asylum-seekers over the summer shrugged off the latest criticisms arriving from Brussels.
Mr Salvini defended his anti-immigration policies after the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici criticised Italians for electing a government he said was of a racist nature.
On Wednesday, Mr Moscovici said: “Italians chose a government clearly eurosceptic and xenophobe which, on immigration and budget, is trying to get rid of the commitments taken with the EU.”
The French eurocrat continued revealing he is worried about the anti-EU movement gaining tractions “from east to west, from north to south”, because “they are developing an argument based on two topics, that Europe is the cause of all evils and is now the time for the people to get back control.”
The call to “responsibility” towards the bloc didn’t go down well with Mr Salvini.
On Wednesday night, the Italian hit back at the eurocrat, saying: “He is maundering.
“In Italy there isn’t any racist or xenophobia, but there is finally a government chosen by citizens which stopped immigrant traffickers by shutting down docks.
“We are dead tired of insults coming from Paris and Brussels”.
READ MORE: Moscovici attacks Italian government calling some ministers “little Mussolini’s”
Mr Salvini’s latest remark comes after he took a brutal dig at the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker.
After the eurocrat argued the government’s decision to set the deficit target at 2.4 percent in its 2019 budget could throw Italy in a crisis as bad as the one experienced by Greece, Mr Salvini harshly replied he doesn’t speak to drunk people.
He said: “I only speak to sober people who don’t make unrealistic comparisons.
“In such a big family there are no first class or second class children.
“If someone in Brussels babbles because they regret the loss of a precarious and fearful Italy – maybe to make business at a lower price using spread and the markets to scare people – they found the wrong Minister and the wrong Government.”
Mr Salvini had previously attacked the comparison between Italy and Greece, saying: “The President of the European Commission, comparing Italy to Greece, is making the spread gap go insane. He could have spared us that.
“Before opening his mouth, he should drink two glasses of water and stop spreading inexistent threats. Or we will ask for compensation.”
The Italian government, which sworn in on June 1 and has promised to put the interests of Italians before the fiscal demands of the EU, is making Brussels feeling increasingly unease.
Just last month, Mr Moscovici confessed he considered Italy a risk for Europe, and went as far as comparing members of the new government to “little Mussolini’s”.
He said: Fortunately there is no sound of jackboots, there is no Hitler, but maybe there are small Mussolini’s. That remains to be seen.”