Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Monday said she aims to build a right-wing majority with Italy at the forefront after the bloc’s elections, which are less than two weeks away.
Far-right parties have struggled to work effectively together in the EU this term, hampered by divisions on key issues like Ukraine and intercrossing national-interest vetoes. However — Meloni is firm that there is an opening for cooperation across the right.
Speaking on Rai Radio1 on Monday, she said: “Today there are opportunities to change the European picture that have never existed before. We owe it to ourselves to take advantage of them.”
“There are the margins to build a different majority in the European parliament and therefore a different Europe with different policies,” she said.
Meloni’s cooperation — and the share of seats her Brothers of Italy party is set to win at the election — is coveted by both French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Over the weekend, Le Pen reportedly appealed to Meloni to unite to create the second-biggest group of the European Parliament. Von der Leyen, days earlier, said she is ready to look past homophobic policies Meloni’s party has enacted in Italy and bring it into the fold of her own European People’s Party.
When asked about how it’s possible to reconcile right-wing positions as different as those held by, for example, von der Leyen and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Meloni claimed Italy is no longer following France and Germany, but leading the way. “If the Italians help me, we can change Europe.”
“We should be happy. I don’t remember Italy being particularly central in the past. We conservatives are the only ones that can create a change in step.”
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