Meloni made her mark on Italy. Now she wants power in Europe

Yet the result will undoubtedly help shift the balance of power in Europe: Meloni’s MEPs will form one of the largest contingents among a record number of representatives from radical and hard-right parties expected to win seats. Including France’s National Rally, the Dutch Party of Freedom and the Alternative for Germany, they are likely to push for a tougher line on immigration and a weakening of Europe’s “green deal”.

It will also enhance Meloni’s own standing in Europe — putting her into an unusually strong position for an Italian leader at a time when the three-party coalition of the German chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling and President Macron of France is hobbled by the lack of a parliamentary majority.

“She is in firm control of Italian domestic politics and she’s looking to wield extra influence at EU level, where Italy has historically punched below its weight,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a Brussels-based senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank.

“She’s a great politician — and also ruthless — and she is positioning herself as someone who is prepared to play ball with the traditional parties in Europe.”

This Wednesday will also see Meloni advancing on the world stage when she hosts President Biden and other G7 leaders at a summit at Borgo Egnazia, a swanky resort on the Puglian coast beloved of international celebrities. Almost uniquely among EU leaders, she has also been assiduously courting Donald Trump.

“If Biden wins in November her relations will be great, but if Trump wins they will be great too,” said Teresa Coratella, of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Rome. “If you look at Scholz and Macron, that is absolutely not the case.”

A highly skilled political operator, Meloni, 47, has come a long way since the last European election in 2019, when her party managed only a lowly fifth place, with less than 7 per cent of the vote.

In opposition at home at the time, she was a strident Eurosceptic. “Bring down this EU!” she declared during that year’s meeting of America’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). It won her plaudits from the right-wing audience, which has helped pave the way for her good relationship with Trump.

Since becoming prime minister, however, Meloni has adopted a far more conciliatory tone and developed a close working relationship with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, even though they come from rival political camps.

Von der Leyen’s German Christian Democrats sit in the European parliament within the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), while the Brothers of Italy are part of the Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), once home to the Conservative Party.

At the G7 summit in Japan in May last year. Meloni will be the host when the leaders meet again on Wednesday

ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES

Meloni has been rewarded by von der Leyen with support for her government’s tougher line on immigration, which has included a controversial deal under which as many as 36,000 migrants picked up in the Mediterranean each year on their way to Italy will be processed instead in Albania.

The Italian leader’s ideas helped inspire a recent toughening of EU migration policy, while the two women have also made trips to Egypt and Tunisia to conclude deals to curb the numbers trying to reach Europe.

This softer stance was reflected in Brothers of Italy’s relatively innocuous slogan for this year’s campaign: “With Giorgia, Italy will change Europe.” It is in sharp contrast to that of the League, headed by Matteo Salvini, Meloni’s junior coalition partner and political rival, which has tried to restore its flagging fortunes with a more confrontational demand for “more Italy and less Europe”.

Meloni’s continued popularity at home — her approval ratings are still above 30 per cent — has been driven in part by her skill as a communicator, especially on social media, but also by the strength of the Italian economy, which has grown by 4.2 per cent since the eve of the Covid pandemic, far more than those of Britain, Germany and France.

The rise has been driven almost entirely, however, by the so-called “super bonus”, generous tax relief for home improvements introduced in 2020. It also helped push the government deficit last year to 7.2 per cent of GDP — more than double the eurozone average — adding to overall debt, which is an alarming 140 per cent of GDP.

It is Meloni’s relationship with von der Leyen that will be key to what will happen next for the EU, which, once votes have been counted, will be plunged into weeks of wrangling over the choice of the next presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the European parliament, as well as the EU’s next foreign policy chief.

Meloni’s approval ratings are above 30 per cent in Italy

ALESSIA PIERDOMENICO/GETTY IMAGES

Von der Leyen, 65, wants a second five-year term and hopes to be endorsed by EU leaders, either when they meet for an “informal” dinner in Brussels on June 17 or, failing that, at a formal two-day summit that begins on June 27.

Although unanimity is not required, Italian backing would be useful, especially in the unlikely event that another rival candidate emerges. For Meloni, keeping in with the European Commission leader makes sense at a time when Italy wants to keep on receiving its massive €194.4 billion slice of the EU post-Covid recovery fund.

More unpredictable will be the next stage of the process — either beginning next month or more probably in September — when von der Leyen would have to win the backing of a simple majority of the 720 newly elected members of the European parliament.

The German secured her first term after scraping home with a majority of just nine votes, after drawing support largely from the mainstream parties. Those parties will be weaker this time, however, not least thanks to the predicted surge of the nationalist right — making the backing of Meloni’s MEPs crucial.

Meloni has yet to confirm her intentions, but the idea of von der Leyen doing a deal with the far right is anathema to leaders of Europe’s left, especially Elly Schlein, who heads Italy’s Democratic Party and is no fan of Meloni.

“It’s a slippery slope towards the right wing,” Schlein told me last week after an election rally in Florence. “In the past five years, we have seen Ursula von der Leyen and the EPP and Liberals running towards the extreme right and the nationalist right, and we think this would betray their history because they were always pro-European forces. There is a risk that they will work together with the nationalist forces that want to weaken the European Union.”

At a military parade for Italy’s Republic Day last week

RICCARDO DE LUCA/GETTY IMAGES

For that reason, Scholz, a Social Democrat, and other members of the “socialist family” had warned last month that they would withdraw their backing for von der Leyen if she does a deal with the far right, Schlein said.

Despite their distaste for Meloni, the Socialists may ultimately not follow through on their threat, especially if it leads to von der Leyen’s defeat and means a further round of horse trading to find a replacement. “Would the Socialists really be ready to take the blame for the EU to be paralysed for six months?” asked Kirkegaard.

Giving overt backing to von der Leyen could nevertheless come at a cost for Meloni too, by undermining relations with other leaders to her right, who remain implacably opposed to the commission president.

This might then complicate attempts afoot to increase the right’s influence in Europe to form a “supergroup”, uniting its members, who are at present divided: some are in the ECR and others in the more radical Identity and Democracy group, while the remainder sit as independents.

Meloni looks unlikely to let that bother her. Such is her newfound power that they may need her more than she needs them.