They stand close together, smiling, head to head, arms around each other. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote of a “strong friendship” on Twitter – and after the visit of Hungary’s President Katalin Novak, she praised the “cordial relations” between the countries.
It is questionable whether there will be similar exuberance this Friday when Meloni meets the German Chancellor. It is her first state visit to Berlin, a good three and a half months after taking office as head of a right-wing alliance. It is true that Meloni and Olaf Scholz have already seen each other at various summits, for example on the sidelines of the COP-27 world climate conference in Egypt they had a more detailed conversation lasting around 45 minutes. But the official invitation, including military honours, has been a long time coming.
In Berlin government circles it is said that there were no “strategic considerations” behind it. There was simply no earlier date found. The Italian government also needed some time to get its bearings. But it was not entirely inconvenient for Scholz that the initial visit was delayed. So he was able to see from a distance how Meloni was doing in her first months in office.
After the right-wing election victory, skepticism was high in Germany: What kind of signals does it send when Scholz courts the post-fascist and treats her like any other guest of state? Is the meeting of the two now the return to normality – or are there still doubts about dealing with the right Roman?
During the election campaign, political scientists repeatedly warned against a creeping Orbanization of Italy, an erosion of European values, as has been practiced by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban for a long time. Meloni herself also fueled the fears, repeatedly showed herself anti-European, in her biography she wrote of a “certain aversion” to Germany. Italy suffers from the “Franco-German axis”, their vision for the EU is an alliance of “free European peoples”. But this sound did not move into the Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of the Prime Minister.
The Italian remains on the course of the previous government
Meloni’s government, made up of her post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia, the right-wing Lega and the conservative Forza Italia party, has broadly stayed on course with the previous government, particularly when it comes to foreign and budgetary policy. “Meloni is pursuing a much more realistic policy than many expected, there is a great deal of continuity with Mario Draghi on many issues,” says Cecilia Emma Sottilotta, political scientist at the University of Perugia.
Meloni’s political program is indeed a right one: security, migration, adherence to the concepts of mother and father as a family. “But the total confrontation, especially with Europe, is trying to avoid it.”
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No Italian government has so far managed to get into the Germany/France duo, says Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali think tank. “Only Mario Draghi managed that.”
Tocci recalls the pictures of Draghi, French President Emmanuel Macron and Scholz, who took the train to Kyiv together last summer. “Through Draghi, Italy has once again played an important international role.”
After his election at the end of 2021, Scholz was also one of the first foreign stations to head for Rome and agreed with Draghi to conclude a “German-Italian action plan” intended to deepen relations with France. With Meloni’s election victory, German-Italian relations cooled off again.
Disagreements abound
The reception of PD leader Enrico Letta in Berlin was of little help: only six days before the parliamentary elections, the Social Democrat was ensnared by Scholz and his party. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil warned that Meloni would “steer Italy in the wrong direction”. After the election, Berlin politicians were reluctant: we must continue to talk to each other – and judge Meloni by her actions.
In her inaugural speech, Meloni publicly distanced herself from fascism for the first time. Her first budget draft was significantly less opulent than expected, and she conceded expensive campaign promises. Nothing has changed in terms of support for Ukraine. Meloni also wants to keep the promised reform plans so as not to risk the billions from the EU recovery fund. In the EU Council, Meloni has so far been surprisingly tame.
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They will continue to “work closely with Italy”, according to Berlin. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any differences of opinion. The issue of migration, which is also on the agenda of the EU Council next week, is “expectably difficult”.
The two positions are also far apart when it comes to reforming the EU debt rules. “Not much concrete is likely to emerge from the meeting,” Tocci fears. SPD foreign politician Axel Schäfer has not given up hope: “I expect Ms. Meloni to commit to the German-Italian action plan when she meets Scholz.” The new “friendship treaty” could be signed by Easter.
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