My money is on EY causing this fuss. That, or Alitalia's executives need to refocus their efforts elsewhere.
This is nothing more than Manchester's gain being Italy's loss.
Much as I dislike their bully-boy antics, EK will get their way most of the time. Airbus have tens of billions in money to arrive from EK, and EK have an ability to defer/cancel to put the pressure on Airbus/EU. That will have an effect on any negotiations EK conduct with governments.
Also, EK are focusing on the US being their largest growth market in the medium term. The US majors hate rights being doled out left and right to EK, but ultimately, as TC has said - they have hundreds of orders for widebody Boeing jets. If the US don't capitulate, they can have the jets back!
With the likelihood of hundreds more aircraft orders, that is tens, and ultimately even hundreds of billions of dollars of export trade. The price of the additional competition to their major carriers pales into insignificance compared to the amount of money EK is bringing in the the US. Unfortunately, the US carriers refuse to believe that any of this 'unfair comptetition' is to do with their abortion of a product, or utterly disgraceful service.
EK will get their way.