With Meloni on top, has Italy crossed the Rubicon?
By Euronews Brussels bureau
Italy has spoken: voters want a hard turn to the right.
Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia), the party that traces its roots to a neo-fascist movement, came on top at Sunday’s general election, amassing 26% of total votes. Its leader, Giorgia Meloni, is now tipped to become Italy’s first female prime minister, helped by a three-party coalition that also includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Together, the coalition secured 235 seats in the lower Chamber and 112 in the Senate, a majority that, in principle, appears to be comfortable enough to govern – although not big enough to amend the constitution. Left-wing and liberal parties had a poor showing, leaving them as a modest force in opposition. (Full results here.)
The meteoric rise of Meloni, a far-right politician who has rallied against what she calls Brussels bureaucrats, LGBT lobbies and gender ideology, triggered the alarm in Brussels. With a war brutally raging in Ukraine and an energy crisis wreaking havoc at home, the EU is struggling to maintain a united front. A disruptor in its third largest economy could prove to be the breaking point.
Will Meloni break ranks and sow chaos? Or will she toe the line once she is in power?
Euronews put these questions to Members of the European Parliament.
“It’s well known that Italy has been a political lab for years. For some of us, it is also an anticipation of what could happen in other member states of Europe. But certainly, it’s been a shake,” Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a Spanish MEP with the socialist group, said during the debate hosted by our colleague Méabh Mc Mahon.
“The third economy in the euro is leading to the extreme right for the first time ever since World War II.”
Lukas Mandl, from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), said he would “feel comfortable when Italy and the new Italian government and the colleagues in the new Italian parliament will act under the umbrella of our common European approach.”
“I would say we have to measure them by their deeds,” he added.
Latvian MEP Roberts Zīle, who, like Meloni, belongs to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), said his fellow lawmakers had painted “too dark” a picture of the election result, adding that she would respect the deal between Brussels and Rome to receive EU recovery funds.
But Alexandra Geese, a member of the Greens, was not convinced: for her, the result of the Italian election is worrying, particularly in the context of the Ukraine war.
While Meloni has supported EU sanctions against Russia and vowed to help Ukraine defend itself, her two coalition partners, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, are known for spousing a friendlier attitude towards the Kremlin.
Mere days before the election took place, Berlusconi said Vladimir Putin was “pushed” into the war and simply wanted to put “decent people” in charge of Kyiv. The comments went viral and drew immense outrage from in and outside the country.
“I don't know how Giorgia Meloni will be able to control that in a coalition. You always have to make concessions,” Geese added. “Russian propaganda will have an enormous role in Italian media, in Italian social networks. It always has had it.”
Zīle intervened and said there won't be “any trade-off on this issue to continue with the strong sanctions against Russia.”
“We have to calm down,” he added. “We are in a very serious security situation because of the Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
 Watch the full Euronews debate.
GO DEEPER As part of our special coverage on the Italian elections, we bring a selection of must-read pieces: Andrea Carlo has five key takeaways from Italy’s historic lurch to the far-right, Giulia Carbonaro examines what the results tells us about the country’s uncertain future and Alice Tidey explores what a hard-right government could mean for the European Union.
And from central Rome, Aleksandar Brezar writes about how the city’s most progressive neighbourhood, Pigneto, has reacted to Meloni’s big win. “It’s not a surprise for us,” a local bookstore told him. “It’s not strange.”
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