Giorgia Meloni Is Europe’s New Kingmaker

Giorgia Meloni no longer wants to leave the European Union—she wants to control it.

The Italian leader, who once described the union as “rotten to the core” and advocated Italy’s exit, has adopted a very different approach since becoming prime minister of the country, perhaps realizing that Italy needs the EU’s funds more than Brussels needs Italy.

She displayed strong Atlanticism and backed the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in favor of Kyiv and against Russian President Vladimir Putin, standing out in comparison to her far-right contemporaries. Meloni even proved to be useful to the EU establishment when she convinced Hungarian President Viktor Orban to sign off on an aid package for Ukraine in February.

And yet there is a fair degree of suspicion among EU policymakers against the leader of the post-fascist party Fratelli d’Italia (or Brothers of Italy) that she may be trying to corrode the EU from within. Over the past two years, she has deliberately weaved a narrative that she is right of center-right but not quite far-right, and that she is someone the EU can work with. She has established links with the biggest conservative bloc, the European People’s Party (EPP), and steered its lead candidate, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, rightward on critical policies.

“We want to create a majority that brings together the center-right forces and sends the left into the opposition even in the EU,” she said last month, implying that she will repeat in Brussels what she achieved in Rome—a coalition between center-right and far-right parties. (Meloni runs Italy in coalition with far-right Lega and center-right Forza Italia).

“She wants to be the bridge between mainstream conservatives and that galaxy of groups that could be described as nationalist right, radical right, far right, whatever you want to call it,” Leo Goretti, an expert in Italian foreign policy at the Rome-based Institute of International Affairs, told Foreign Policy.

According to polls, the next European Parliament is likely to be by far the most right-leaning in history. Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) political group—which includes Poland’s far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party and has indicated it may offer refuge to increasingly authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, and Identity and Democracy, the grouping that is home to French politician Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany, is expected to raise their tally. Along with the EPP, which is expected to remain the largest grouping, the next parliament is likely to have a majority of right-wingers debating legislation.

But the polls also state that the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) will remain the second biggest group, ensuring the EPP needs it before it needs the ECR and Identity and Democracy. The grand coalition between the center right, the center left, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal Renew Europe grouping is expected to carry the day.

Meloni, in that sense, could be disappointed. The socialists and liberals will continue to be in charge of overall decision-making, and veto any major far-right policy initiatives or normalisng of Orban and Identity and Democracy. However, the survival of the grand coalition doesn’t promise European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s return to office, and it offers Meloni leverage over the incumbent president and likely future president of the commission.

On June 17, more than a week after voting across Europe ends, leaders of the European Union will descend on Brussels for supposedly an informal dinner and decide on a candidate that they all find amenable and can gather the required numbers in the parliament.

Von der Leyen would need a majority of 361 votes to retain the top job. But since the French conservatives in the EPP have refused to back her, there’s a chance that others may back out, too—so von der Leyen has opened the door to Meloni.

A collaboration with Meloni-led ECR will depend “very much on how the composition of the Parliament is, and who is in what group,” von der Leyen said during a debate organized by Politico in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

If any such alliance materializes, Meloni will establish herself as a parallel power center in a right-leaning European Parliament and yield unmatched influence on the commission president to push the body’s policy further right.

“‘What do you want, Giorgia?’ That’s what Ursula will say when she picks up Meloni’s call, if she does, in the end, need votes of MEPs from Fratelli d’Italia,” a senior EPP leader told Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity.

“She must assume not every parliamentarian in these groupings will vote for her,” said Pedro Lopez, EPP’s spokesperson,  at his office in the European Parliament, referring to von der Leyen. “Some in the EPP are unhappy with her, many among the socialists would say she was too close to Meloni, so we won’t back her. It’s going to be tight,” he said. “That’s where Meloni’s Brothers of Italy comes in. If they have 24, 25 seats, then they become critical.”

While Meloni is being pegged as a kingmaker-—or rather, queenmaker—who may deliver the votes that von der Leyen may need, some say that befriending Meloni may have already upset the socialists and backfire for von der Leyen.

“Von der Leyen is gone. Why? Because of her closeness to Meloni,” said Leila Simona Talani, the head of the Center for Italian Politics at King’s College London. “Von der Leyen has taken very right-wing positions with Meloni on her side. The Italian and Spanish left has taken this very badly.”

The Socialists and Democrats have warned the EPP against any alliance with the far right at its own peril. “Our political family has stated clearly that we the democratic families should reject any agreement with the far-right. We certainly do so. And other European democratic parties/candidates should also be clear about it,” Pedro Marques, the vice president for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, told Foreign Policy in an email.

The anonymous EPP operative said that the socialists are merely engaging in “political theater” and will come round in the end.

“There will not be a written agreement with ECR, but an understanding” between von der Leyen and Meloni that the latter’s views will continue to inform EU policy, he added.

And since the EPP doesn’t actually consider Meloni’s Brothers of Italy to be a far-right party, it finds collaborating with Meloni to be a harmless prospect.

The EPP and ECR have common ground on externalizing asylum applications, even at the cost of EU’s stated values regarding human rights. Meloni accompanied von der Leyen in Tunisia and Egypt as the incumbent commission president offered billions to curb migration. Meloni was also one of the leaders who reportedly compelled von der Leyen to scale back on climate ambitions and withdraw the pesticide reduction law after a series of farmers’ protests broke out across the continent earlier this year.

“Instead of choosing a path of confrontation like the Polish PiS, which just used Brussels as a scapegoat, Meloni chose the path of dialogue with Brussels and the results are clear,” said Lopez, of the EPP. “She made several modifications to the Italian recovery plan, and that has received a green light from the EU commission. She promoted deals with Tunisia and Egypt. She made sure Brussels took into account what matters for her Italian voters.”

When I asked if the EPP was comfortable with an alliance with a post-fascist party that emerged from Mussolini’s Italian Social Movement, Lopez responded with a question: “Is she far-right?”

Goretti argued that the “litmus test” for her apparent moderation would be U.S. elections. “Should Trump win, should there be a radical right government in the U.S., then we might see Meloni 2.0. What would happen in case we have a Trump presidency with a different approach to the Ukraine war? What if Trump insists on greater burden-sharing?” he said. “What we do know for sure is that until 2021 Meloni’s party had very strong relations with the Republican right in the U.S.”

The co-chair of ECR in Brussels, Nicola Procaccini, said on record that the group would prefer Trump to win, and one of the members of Brothers of Italy even visited Florida and met Trump. He reported back that Trump saw Meloni as “trustable.”

The EPP and its lead candidate, von der Leyen, may have cast aside suspicions, but Italian experts and people FP spoke to said that Meloni was incorrigible. At a quiet cafe in Brussels, a gay couple I spoke with was furious at her growing acceptance in Europe. One of them said that while Meloni has tried to convey the impression that “her opposition to same-sex parents is only political,” they can see behind her charade. (Meloni’s government has denied same-sex parents equal rights.) “We know who she is,” they said.

“Meloni is a fascist,” said Talani, of the King’s College London. “I am Italian. I know.”