Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks at a press conference with Albania's Prime Minister as part of her visit at the site of a recently build Italian-run migrant centre at the port of Shengjin, northwest of Tirana, Albania, on June 5.ADNAN BECI/Getty Images
Only a few years ago, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, a small right-wing party with neo-fascist roots, was considered something of a political arsonist. Her policies presented her as an anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic, vaguely pro-Russian, populist firebrand whose nationalist tilt would inspire her to rattle the European Union were she elected.
In 2022, she was elected Italy’s first woman prime minister, replacing the sober economist Mario Draghi, and immediately proceeded to confound her critics by emerging instead as a conservative pragmatist working within the EU system.
She supported NATO and Ukraine’s fight against Russia, to the point of supplying weapons to Kyiv. She cozied up to Brussels, probably to ensure there was no disruption in the flow of €200-billion in pandemic recovery funds to Italy. She was seen as the “Orbán whisperer” for her apparently successful effort to keep Viktor Orbán, the pro-Moscow Hungarian leader, more or less within the EU policy fold.
But even as a lieutenant of the establishment in Brussels, she remained a right-wing populist at home: anti-immigrant, no stalwart supporter of media freedom or LGBTQ+ rights and ambivalent on the environment.
Today, the 47-year-old Roman has one of Europe’s highest approval ratings among its prime ministers and presidents, to the point that she is seen as the kingmaker in the European Parliament elections, whose polls open Thursday and close Sunday. She is being courted by two powerful European political leaders, both women: Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally party, which is expected to surge in the EU elections at the expense of French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (EC), the EU’s executive arm.
Ms. Le Pen wants Ms. Meloni to join forces with her to form an expanded right-wing bloc in the European Parliament; Ms. von der Leyen wants her support to help propel her to a second term atop the EC.
Either way, Ms. Meloni and her ideological sympathizers are on course to reshape the European Parliament. “Right-wing forces are set to make sizable gains in the European Parliament elections,” said Luigi Scazzieri, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. “The influence of the right is likely to make itself felt over time, as mainstream political forces feel under pressure to tilt right on issues such as climate policy.”
The EU elections are the second-biggest in the world, after India’s, and will be the bloc’s first post-Brexit vote. Some 373 million people in the 27 member states are eligible to elect 720 parliamentarians. Typically, voter turnout is fairly low, hovering around 50 per cent, as the machinations of the “gnomes” of Brussels and Strasbourg don’t tend to fire up citizens’ imaginations.
But voters would do well to pay more attention to the European Parliament. As various EU treaties have been revised, it has been given greater influence over national governments and individual rights. It approves the EU budget, (€189-billion this year), passes EU legislation based on EC proposals and helps determine policies on everything from trade and antitrust issues to sanctions and investments in member state programs. Its parliamentarians, known as MEPs, also approve or reject the EC’s presidential candidates.
The MEPs belong to political parties from their own countries but sit in groups in Parliament that broadly share interests. The biggest is the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) – Ms. von der Leyen’s home – with 176 seats. The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) are in second spot, the Renew Europe liberals in third, and the Greens in fourth.
Slightly father down is the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, whose president is Ms. Meloni. Right behind is the far-right Euroskeptic and nationalist Identity and Democracy group (ID), where Ms. Le Pen’s party is a prominent member. Both are expected to make the most gains in these elections, with the European Council on Foreign Relations recently predicting a “sharp turn right,” threatening the majorities of the centrist groups.
Propelling this shift is the backlash against climate-change policies, which are seen to be raising fuel prices, pushing consumers into pricey electric vehicles they cannot afford and exporting jobs to Asia as energy-intensive factories stop hiring or close. Migration, especially from Africa, is unpopular everywhere, and the rising wealth divide is triggering anti-establishment anger. Russian disinformation campaigns are spurring the rise of hard-right parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD). High inflation and the spotty economic revival is also turning voters against the mainstream parties.
Ms. Meloni and Ms. Le Pen are the prime beneficiaries of the swing to the right. Ms. Meloni, especially, is seen by some parties as the ticket to power. “The future of the sovereigntist camp in Europe today lies in the hands of two women,” Mr. Orbán told French magazine Le Point last month. “Everything will depend on the capacity of Marine Le Pen in France and Giorgia Meloni in Italy to co-operate.”
As if on cue, Ms. Le Pen told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper last week that she wants Ms. Meloni onside. “This is the moment for us to join forces – it would be truly useful,” she said. “If we succeed, we could become the second-biggest group in the EU Parliament. I don’t think we should miss such an opportunity.”
Ms. von der Leyen apparently knows that Ms. Meloni and her right-wing allies could make or break her. Ms. Le Pen has called the EC boss’s policies “disastrous.” So Ms. von der Leyen has been courting Ms. Meloni; the two have made trips together to Tunisia and Egypt to make deals to stop, or at least slow, the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. But divisions are rife among the parties of the right.
For instance, most of the parties in Ms. Meloni’s ECR favour supporting Ukraine, whereas most of the members of the ID group do not or, at least, are not in favour of providing offensive weapons to Kyiv for fear of igniting a broader war. Many of the parties of the right and hard-right also differ on LBGTQ+ rights. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right nationalist PVV party, is a defender of gay and lesbian rights. Ms. Meloni, less so; her government has banned the registration of birth certificates for foreign-born children of same-sex parents.
She has not shown her hand when it comes to who she might team up with, even though she has said “there are points in common” with Ms. Le Pen on immigration, the green transition and upholding European culture and identity. Certainly, the mainstream parties fear Ms. Le Pen more than they fear Ms. Meloni. It may emerge that the EU Parliament’s centre cannot hold without Ms. Meloni’s support.