The head of the right-wing extremist Fratelli d’Italia is causing fear in parts of Italy

Rome When Italian newspapers quote Giorgia Meloni these days, it’s usually a translation, mostly from English. Because the 45-year-old head of Fratelli d’Italia has long spoken more to foreign media than to the local ones.

In the interviews she then says sentences like: “I stand by what I think. If I were a fascist, I would say that. But I am not a fascist.” Or: “The Italian right handed fascism over to history and condemned the suppression of democracy and the shameful anti-Jewish laws.”

So no fascist. And also not a financial gambler, as she says herself. “I’m very careful about that – no responsible person can imagine ruining the country’s finances,” Meloni told Reuters on Aug. 25. Italy will follow the guidelines from Brussels.

If her allies Matteo Salvini from the right-wing populist League and ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promise a flat tax of 15 percent and a doubling of minimum pensions during the election campaign, she warns “not to make unrealistic campaign promises”.

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Giorgia Meloni is aware of the fears and concerns her role as favorite in the parliamentary elections triggers. That is ultimately the reason for their current charm and calming offensive.

But the attempt to portray herself as a moderate politician who has both feet on the ground of the democratic constitutional state and has freed herself from the ideological ballast of the post-fascist predecessor parties fails in reality.

Her party is teeming with die-hard Duce nostalgics

It starts with your party. The Fratelli d’Italia, up to and including senior positions, are still teeming with hardened Duce nostalgics who stretch out their right hands in the “Roman salute” at every opportunity, make pilgrimages to Mussolini’s grave and maintain close ties with Holocaust deniers.

The party logo of the “Brothers of Italy” still features the green, white and red flame that licks over the coffin of dictator Benito Mussolini, which is symbolized by a black line. When Meloni was recently asked to do without the flame in the party logo, she refused. “We are proud of it.”

Of course, it’s not just symbols that fuel doubts about Meloni’s moderation. The 45-year-old maintains excellent contacts with right-wing extremists, nationalists and EU enemies around the world. In 2018, for example, she invited former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to a large party meeting, which was celebrated with an ovation.

A year later it was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s turn, to whom Meloni for his wall against Syrian war refugees, “defending Hungary’s Christian identity”, his promotion of the “natural male-female family” and for the taxes against banks and speculators praised.

Berlusconi, Salvini and Meloni

The right-wing alliance from Forza Italia under Silvio Berlusconi (l), Fratelli d’Italia boss Georgia Meloni (r.) And Matteo Salvini.

(Photo: Reuters)

All this does not bode well for the future relationship between Rome and Brussels, even though Meloni has repeatedly assured in recent weeks that Italy will remain “a reliable partner” for the EU.

But that hasn’t stopped her party from voting no in all five parliamentary votes in which the national recovery plan was up for debate – despite Italy receiving 191 billion euros as part of the EU bailout package. In each case, Meloni used the opportunity to speak out against the paternalism of Brussels and the disadvantages of the single currency.

How does Giorgia Meloni really tick? Her autobiography “Io sono Giorgia” (I am Giorgia) and detailed research by the newspaper “La Repubblica” provide possible answers to these questions. In her book, Meloni describes how her father Franco left the family when she was four years old – the dad, a communist, sailed around the world and then opened a bar in the Canary Islands.

This is how the Handelsblatt reports on Italy:

A few months after their father’s disappearance, little Giorgia and her sister Arianna forgot a burning candle in their children’s room – the house burned down. Giorgia, Arianna and mother Anna moved into a 45 square meter apartment in Rome’s working-class Garbatella district; the mother kept herself and the two girls afloat with changing jobs.

The former outsider from the working-class district always wanted to show everyone

Born to a single mother, Giorgia was an outsider in her new surroundings. When she was 15, Meloni joined the “Youth Front” of the post-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), where she found friends and recognition. Thanks to her temperament, her polished rhetoric and her fearlessness, she rose quickly within the “Jugendfront”.

Later she was in the Alleanza Nazionale (AN) of Gianfranco Fini, who committed the post-fascists to democracy and enabled them to govern. In 2008, under Silvio Berlusconi, at the age of 31, Meloni became youth and sports minister, and in 2012 she founded the Fratelli d’Italia.

The former outsider from the working-class district always wanted to show everyone. But when the new party first took part in parliamentary elections in 2013, the Fratelli achieved just two percent of the votes, and they got four percent in the last national election.

In Italian politics, which is still dominated by male top dogs, Meloni was smiled at for a long time in view of these meager results. The “ragazza from Garbatella” was not taken seriously, even in her own party. That has changed radically. Today, a month before the elections that could see her crowned Italy’s first female prime minister, everyone trembles at Giorgia Meloni. In Italy, but above all abroad.

This text first appeared in the Tagesspiegel.

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