the solidity of Giorgia Meloni’s coalition put to the test

In Italy, since October 2022, it is his party, Fratelli d’Italia, which has been in power, at the head of a right and far-right coalition which includes two other groups that are sometimes completely opposed. Unity will not be easy during this campaign.

The European elections will take place from June 6 to 9, 2024 and, in Italy, the three parties of the ruling coalition sit in three different groups in the Strasbourg Parliament with distinct, even opposing, political lines. There is the League of Matteo Salvini, partner of the National Rally and the Germans of the AfD in Strasbourg and Brussels. They are on a line hostile to a federal Europe or even to Europe itself.

There is Forza Italia, the party of the late Silvio Berlusconi, now led by former European Parliament president Antonio Tajani. The Forza Italia line is on an exact opposite trend to that of the League. He sits within the EPP, the pro-European right-wing party, alongside, for example, the Republicans or the German Christian Democrats. And in the middle, Fratelli d’Italia, Giorgia Meloni’s party. She had campaigned on an anti-European tone, but since coming to power she has instead followed in the footsteps of Mario Draghi, her predecessor, by keeping Italy fully within Europe.

The campaign for the European elections has started and is already creating interference. The latest example is a vote on December 21 in the Parliament of Rome on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), this fund which allows intervention when a State is in financial difficulty. All that was missing was the green light from Italy to validate its reform and extend it to banks. But the Italian Parliament voted “no”, under pressure from the League, to the great annoyance of Forza Italia. Giorgia Meloni, who was violently against the MES during the campaign, and less radical since, gave pledges on this occasion to the most radical wing of her majority, to the detriment of her relations with the European Union.

Giorgia Meloni gave pledges to the radicals during the vote on the ESM, but, even if she wanted to, which is not necessarily the case, she cannot afford an anti-European turn. Rome is the big beneficiary of the European recovery plan put in place after Covid, Italy must receive 200 billion euros which are released in installments, and the country, very in debt, is also dependent on the application more or less strict adherence to the rules of good European management.

Fratelli d’Italia at 30% voting intentions

Giorgia Meloni will therefore sail on sight until the elections. She would have liked to reproduce in Strasbourg the coalition formed in Rome and to be one of the leaders of a conservative line on the continent. But it’s impossible. The pro-European Tajani has already announced that it is out of the question to sit alongside the friends of Marine le Pen and the AfD, some of whom he describes as Nazis. Throughout the campaign, she will be subject to opposing pressures from her allies who are counting on the Europeans to find oxygen – they are today at less than 10% in the polls. Fratelli d’Italia is at almost 30% voting intentions.

For Giorgia Meloni, the European election is an opportunity to strengthen her influence on the continent, which would allow her, for example, to obtain more support from Europe to generate the migrant file. Depending on the results in June, a surge from the nationalist parties or good results from the pro-European right, she will try to make the most of this election.