Victory can no longer be taken away from her: Giorgia Meloni has won the parliamentary elections in Italy. While the last ballot papers were still being counted, the boss of Fratelli d’Italia appeared beaming with joy on the stage of her supporters and formed the “victory sign” for the photographers with her index and middle fingers.
One of the founding members of the EU is drifting to the right. In a month at the latest, Italy will no longer be governed by the level-headed ex-central banker Mario Draghi, who steered the country stably through the pandemic, inflation and Ukraine war – but by a woman who has her roots in post-fascism and who calls for a “Europe of patriots”. and which repeatedly took a stand against minorities during the election campaign. When in doubt, she prefers to coordinate with Viktor Orban’s Hungary than with Germany.
The “Brothers of Italy”, whose party symbol still sports a flame in the national colors – a nod to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini – is joined by the right-wing Lega, a party that is taking an extreme anti-migrant stance and whose leader Matteo Salvini is Russia’s president Vladimir Putin worshiped.
The only party with links to the European establishment is Forza Italia. Like the CDU, the right-wing conservatives around the elderly ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi belong to the European People’s Party. However, they get a result of just eight percent – Meloni’s party is more than 26 percent. It is clear who will set the tone in the new alliance.
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Much was warned before the election. In Brussels, where Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of “instruments” that she had already used in Hungary and Poland. In Berlin, where SPD leader Lars Klingbeil warned that Meloni was “putting Italy on the wrong track”. But none of this helps: Europe must work together with the new government.
The election is an expression of democracy
Italy is not a small state like Hungary with its almost ten million inhabitants. Italy’s population is six times as large. The economic power is the third largest behind Germany and France, the eighth largest in the whole world.
The German and Italian economies are closely ramified and dependent on each other, especially in such important sectors as the automotive, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
Even if many Europeans don’t like it, the result in Rome is an expression of democracy. The Italians deliberately chose Meloni and their comrades-in-arms. Brussels, Paris and Berlin have to accept that.
There have been three governments since 2018, two of which were not elected. Draghi’s cabinet was never legitimized by the people.
Germany and France must not make the mistake of looking down on Italian politics. That has happened often enough in the past – and has also shaped Meloni.
Matteo Salvini takes a hard line against migrants.
(Photo: imago images / Inside photo)
No wonder that she keeps writing about the “French-German” axis in her biography. Of course, there is great fear that Italy will now become the heavyweight blocker and preventer in Europe.
The EU must fight any form of extremism, restrictions on minorities or the undermining of the rule of law – if necessary by blocking EU funds. But when in doubt, Europe has to put on Italian glasses, for example when it comes to issues such as refugee policy, which, as a Mediterranean country, has particularly affected the country.
The question will also be how much of its agenda the right-wing alliance can implement. Election campaigns are one thing, government responsibility is something completely different.
While Lega and Forza Italia have been demanding billions in tax cuts, pension increases and supplementary budgets for weeks, Meloni does not want to take on any new debt. Although she has announced that she wants to discuss the distribution of billions of euros from the EU reconstruction fund, she certainly does not want to jeopardize the next tranches for the heavily indebted country.
More: How Giorgia Meloni triumphed in the Rome elections