The vast European political crisis which erupted due to the strange results of the French elections – a victory for Marine Le Pen’s right in the first round which turned into a defeat (she came third) in the second round – the advance of the right and the problems that surfaced at the NATO summit with the worsening of the war in Ukraine and the maneuvers that benefit the positions of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Today, they put Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at centre stage.
Meloni, 47, has decided to play the card of hard and pure Atlanticism with the support of the American president Joe Biden, which serves to stop the offensive of new far-right group of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s European Patriots, which is backed by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and his Identity and Democracy group, which has been handed over to the Patriots.
Meloni said on Wednesday that in the French elections “Nobody won”alluding in particular to Marine Le Pen, whose RN party won the first round of the elections but then lost the second round and She was lastdefeated by the alliance of the left that mutually supported each other with President Macron’s party.
The prime minister said that the French episode showed at the European level “a an Italy with a very solid government in a Europe where there are governments less stable than ours.”
On the peninsula, the three parties in Rome’s governing alliance include: Brothers from Italy, led by Meloni (declaredly far-right and captain of the ECR group) with 76 MEPs from a dozen countries, Forza Italia, which is part of the coalition of the European People’s Partya conservative liberal party, the largest in the European Union, and another far-right party, Identity and Democracywhose inventor and boss is Vice Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.
These divisions do not bode well. Much more when Salvini has decided to join the Party of European Patriots.
Salvini is one of the Italian politicians more closely aligned with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Melons risks being isolated by the different positions of the rightwhich became evident in the recent elections to the European Parliament.
In Italy, the European electoral movements have Meloni in suspense, having won the elections but now facing strong political tensions.
Differences with Salvini
Although many European political groups are turning away from the prospect of participating more decisively in the defence of Ukraine, Meloni claims to be involved in arms shipments to Ukrainians to stop the Russians, who are still on the offensive. His deputy prime minister Salvini responded directly by pointing out that “The more weapons are sent, the more the war continues.”
His ally Salvini, moreover, in a totally different position to that of Meloni, has continued to move closer to Republican leader Donald Trump, faced in the American presidential elections with President Joe Biden, supported by Meloni.
For Prime Minister Meloni this is another potentially difficult problem because the government of Rome promises to respect the 2% increase in the Gross National Product Italian to finance increases in military spending, which have so far affected 23 NATO countries.
As soon as he was installed in the government of Italy, Meloni traveled to Washington and met with Biden, announcing to him full support for paternal American leadership. Two days ago he said that Russia “does not want peace.”
Meloni hopes to reach an agreement to support the re-election of German Ursula von der Leyen to the European government and claims that the European Parliament will vote on Thursday 18th to compensate for this by appointing an Italian EU “minister” to one of the strategic positions in the economic area.