If Italy’s recent local elections were a test of the nation’s pulse, then the country could be taking a shift to the right next year. That’s because of the success of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) party. It has emerged as Italy’s main opposition force and led a right-wing coalition that enjoyed massive gains in the local polls.
EuroNews With a general election due next year — and Brothers of Italy topping opinion polls — the prospect of Meloni being Italy’s next prime minister is gathering momentum.
Meloni’s current platform is built upon a national-conservative, sovereignist model. She opposes mass immigration and the alleged “Islamization” of Italy and Europe, calls for stronger law and order, and the relaxation of Italy’s infamously Kafkaesque red tape.
Alongside firebrand conservative Matteo Salvini, she has also frequently been deemed as one of the country’s first and foremost Eurosceptics, as a result of her criticism of the Euro and “Brussels bureaucrats”. Euroscepticism itself is typically described as a recent phenomenon in Italy, attributed to political developments following the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht – especially the Eurozone and refugee crises of the past decade.
Nonetheless, it actually traces a much older history in the country, with anti-European sentiment being alive since the 1950s. Meloni’s recent assertion that “Europe needs a soul” has a striking parallel with a far-right magazine’s headline from 1957, which called the Common Market “Europe without a soul”.
In spite of her anti-EU criticism, Meloni remains steadfast in her opposition to a hypothetical “Italexit” and has rebuffed claims that she is “anti-European”. On social issues, Meloni is staunchly traditional and opposes abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.
Brothers of Italy runs within a centre-right electoral coalition, which includes two parties that are currently in government: Matteo Salvini’s populist, anti-immigration League Party, and the enduring ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi’s more moderately conservative Go Italy (Forza Italy).
Salvini’s party has haemorrhaged nearly half of its supporters since 2020, many of whom have been picked up by Brothers of Italy. Analysts attribute such losses to Salvini’s failed attempt to call a general election in the summer of 2019 – a manoeuvre which resulted in his accidental self-exclusion from government – and his approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, which was widely perceived as being miscalculated and heavy-handed.
“The League is paying for the fact that it’s in the government,” he added. “Brothers of Italy, being in the opposition, is obtaining better results and intercepting a transversal electorate – intercepting disappointed Five Star Movement and League voters, but also voters who see Brothers of Italy as a political force that could potentially form a government, due to Meloni’s conservative shift in the past few months and years.”
Meloni is no less critical of the European Union than Mr. Salvini, but unlike him has never openly endorsed proposals to quit the euro. In particular, she cultivated international relationships, to such an extent that she was elected president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (a European Parliament group comprising right-wing parties from fifteen member states, including the Swedish Democrats and Spain’s Vox).
She has even developed ties with Republican groups in the United States, and took part in the “National Conservatism Conference” hosted in Rome by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a group close to neo-nationalist theorist Yoram Hazony.
Meloni’s reputation as a coherent, conviction politician has made her popular with a large segment of Italian voters, ranking as one of Italy’s most trusted leaders.
Numerous others, however, do not share such sentiment, and rather see her far-right political baggage as particularly worrisome.
“A cabinet led by her will basically mean Italy following an Orbán-like path – nationalism, anti-EU, anti-immigration, with some tensions with international allies,” warned Mammone, an expert on the Italian far-right.
Daniel Erbstoesser says
Yeah the chance is there but will it be used?. Italy has in the past allways voted for the socialist and i dont think that it will be different this time but we will see.
Jack Rider says
The swamp that is contemporary Europe is the product of globalists who first made the Common Market to facilitate centralization of power and destruction of international borders in Europe. The circle was completed with establishment of the Euro as a common currency European nations control over their central banks and economic policy. Every action has a reaction. So the chickens are coming home to roost. European peoples are figuring out the new unique tyranny exploiting them and are turning to the nationalists to champion their heritage, aspirations and values. I can’t wait for this right turn in the US. We need the coming showdown with the camouflaged marxists, the BLM anti-white racists, islamic imperialists and all their “woke” accomplices. The arc of history turns toward freedom.
Daniel Erbstoesser says
Be patient then our hour of power is comming and cannot be held up anymore then the jumper has left the cliff and is in a freefall that cannot be stopped.
Cleavis W Nowell says
Sweden is such a basket case that natives have to learn Hungarian and emigrate to Hungary; that will not happen in Italy if Meloni succeeds.
Linda Rivera says
FANTASTIC!!!
Leonard Gearhardt says
Oh man!!! can I send her and Salvini donations for campaigning and security?
Poor Italy and fighting the fascists all the time! It takes many generations to water down fascist or nazi or stalinist infections in the ethos of peoples. Remove the jihadist ferals