by N. Peter Kramer
Giorgia Meloni’s election victory comes at a critical time for the European Union, with war back on the continent. Sanctions against Russia are driving up inflationary pressures. And she knows Italian’s main concerns (as these of citizens elsewhere in the EU) are an acute cost of living crisis and spiralling energy costs. Italy has been particularly hard hit as it used to rely so much on Russia for gas.
Many EU memberstates worry that mounting Italian public pressure over what’s expected to be a tough winter, could persuade Giorgia Meloni to pull back from sanctions nd a hard line against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. To add to the complexities, her chosen coalition partners to govern, Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini have historic ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Meloni’s popularity is based on coming to town squares, to little places. She knows how to talk to ordinary working people. Not preaching like others from a pulpit. Her voters hope, that she will keep her promise to get Italy back on its feet. But her ardent nationalism worries ‘Brussels’. Italy is the EU’s third largest economy and one of its founding six members. Meloni is a deep Eurosceptic at heart. On the campaign trail she often spoke of Italy being downtrodden by the EU’s bigger and more wealthy members. And while she has steered clear of calling for Italy to leave the euro or the EU altogether, she is thought likely to team up with members seen by Brussels as ‘problematic’, Hungary and Poland, particularly when it comes to migration.
Some people describe Giorgia Meloni as a political pragmatist, who’s clocked the importance of EU money, especially the eagerly anticipated Covid-19 funds, designed to help boost member states’ economies after the pandemic. Italy is one of the EU’s most indebted nations, yet Meloni’s welfare promises are considerable. They include more support for the disabled, for childcare, for pensioners and for Italian women.
Giorgia Meloni’s will be the most right-leaning Italian government since World War II. And Italy’s election comes hot on the heels of a vote in Sweden which saw the Sweden Democrats with its roots in Neo-Nazism become the country’s second largest party. This summer, Marine le Pen’s far right performed spectacularly in France’s parliamentary election. And the EU is already struggling with what it calls ‘rule of law issues’ with the nationalist governments in Poland and Hungary.
One battle that EU enthusiasts seem to have lost already, is the dream of an ever-closer political union of memberstates. Few EU countries would sign up to that these days.
