Right turn

What Italy’s election might mean for Europe and the world

A party with neo-fascist roots, the Brothers of Italy, has triumphed in Italy’s snap general elections, setting up Giorgia Meloni as the country’s first far-right leader since the fall of Benito Mussolini.

Meloni, 45, now likely to become Italy’s first female prime minister, praised Mussolini in her early career, saying in 1996 on French television that the fascist dictator “was a good politician, in that everything he did, he did for Italy.”

The rising star of Europe’s far right more recently summed up her values in a now-famous chant at a 2019 rally: “I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian … No one will take that away from me.”

Italy’s lurch to populism and the far right immediately shifted continental politics, putting a Euroskeptic party in position to lead a founding member of the European Union and its third-largest economy. Right-wing leaders across Europe immediately hailed Meloni’s victory.

The snap election after PM Mario Draghi’s government collapsed comes at a crucial time as Europe grapples with energy and cost-ofliving crises — mostly triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — that look set to intensify this winter.

Meloni is chair of the right-wing European Conservative and Reformist group in the European Parliament, which gathers her Brothers of Italy, Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Spain’s Vox as well as the Sweden Democrats, who finished on top of a national elections this month on a platform of cracking down on crime and limiting immigration.

During her campaign, Meloni called Italy’s past investment deal with China a “big mistake” and said the EU must “put pressure as hard as possible” to prevent China from causing military conflict over Taiwan.

On Monday, as final results were tallied, the Star asked experts about what Meloni’s win could mean for Europe and the world.

What comes next?

While Meloni’s conservative coalition was the clear winner, a government’s formation is still weeks away and will involve consultations among party leaders and President Sergio Mattarella. Given Italy’s fractured political makeup, no single party ever stands much chance of winning enough seats to govern alone, but right-wing and rightleaning centrists forged a campaign pact that had propelled Meloni into power.

Near-final results showed the centre-right coalition netting some 44 per cent of the vote, with Meloni’s Brothers of Italy snatching up 26 per cent. Her coalition partners divided up the remainder, with the anti-immigrant Northern League of Matteo Salvini winning nearly nine per cent and the more moderate Forza Italia of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi taking around eight per cent.

Voter turnout declined to a historic low of 64 per cent. Polls suggested voters stayed home in part because they were disenchanted by the backroom deals that had created three different governments since the previous national election in 2018.

The Economist Intelligence Unit had rated Italy a “flawed democracy” in 2019, citing its short-lived coalition governments. Since the end of the Second World War, the nation has changed governments at a rate of once every 1.14 years.

Neo-fascist roots

Meloni’s party traces its origins to the postwar neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, but she sounded a moderate, unifying tone in a victory speech early Monday.

“If we are called to govern … we will do it for all Italians and we will do it with the aim of uniting the people (of this country),” she said. “Italy chose us.”

While she had praised Mussolini in her youth, Meloni addressed criticism about her party’s threat to democracy head-on, saying in a campaign video: “The Italian right has handed fascism over to history for decades now, unambiguously condemning the suppression of democracy and the ignominious antiJewish laws.”

However, analysts say her party clearly clashes with the EU’s dominant principles.

“The history of the European Union is rooted in a set of principles that appear distant from the ideology of the Italian far right, especially in terms of civil rights, minorities, migration, and refugees,” said Paolo Wulzer, professor of history of international relations at University L’Orientale of Naples.

So far, the rise of populism in Europe has weakened “but not collapsed the European project,” Wulzer told the Star, but Italy is far more influential than other countries that elected far-right leaders.

“Italy’s weight and relevance in the European Union is incomparable to countries like Poland or Hungary. Italy has the potential to influence the future of the European Union in a very significant way.”

The vice-president of the European Parliament, Katarina Barley of the Germany’s ruling Social Democrats, said Meloni’s victory was “worrying” given her affiliations with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Donald Trump.

“Her electoral lip service to Europe cannot hide the fact that she represents a danger to constructive coexistence in Europe,” Barley was quoted as saying in German daily Die Welt.

Migrants

A shift likely to cause friction with European powers regards migrants. Meloni has called for a naval blockade to prevent migrant boats from leaving North African shores, and has proposed screening potential asylum-seekers in Africa, before they set out.

However, she may have little room to boldly challenge pro-migration EU policies given the windfall Italy gets from Brussels in COVID recovery funds. Italy secured some 191.5 billion euros, the biggest chunk of the EU’s 750-billion-euro recovery package, and is bound by certain reform and investment milestones it must hit to receive it all.

Although Meloni’s party has been vocally against migrants from the Mediterranean, it is seen as unlikely that this could alter Italy’s support of Ukraine and acceptance of Ukrainian refugees.

Tough on China

Meloni pledged to strengthen ties with Taiwan and reverse course on her country’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2019, Italy became the first major European country to join Beijing’s global infrastructure investment project, but Meloni has called the move a “big mistake” and said she would find it hard to approve the renewal, scheduled for 2024, of Italy’s memorandum of understanding with China.

Describing the relationship between her country and Taiwan as a “sincere friendship,” Meloni said recently that she has been “following closely with unease” events around Taiwan as a result of intensified Chinese threats.

Last month, China’s army completed the largest military exercises ever around Taiwan, sending warships and planes across the dividing line of the strait separating Taiwan and continental Asia. “This is an unacceptable conduct by Beijing, a conduct that we strongly condemn,” she said.

Meloni’s tough China stance could be one of her policies that would bring her in closer alignment with Italy’s traditional allies, says Enrico Fardella, visiting scholar at John Cabot University in Rome and director of the ChinaMed project, which tracks China’s role in the Mediterranean.

Her criticism of Beijing over issues such as human rights represent a “consistent component of her political career,” Fardella said, but he thinks the timing of her Taiwan statements was also intended to send a message to the U.S., NATO and other parties that Italy would hew closer to their criticism of China.

“A critical stance toward China, however, has become quite shared among most of the political forces in Italy and in the EU and it can function as a balancer of other Meloni’s more controversial positions,” Fardella told the Star.

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Italy’s weight and relevance in the European Union is incomparable to countries like Poland or Hungary. Italy has the potential to influence the future of the European Union in a very significant way.

PAOLO WULZER UNIVERSITY L’ ORIENTALE OF NAPLES