Giorgia Meloni, the most desirable bride in Europe

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is in the middle of the bed in the upcoming European elections. The right-wing conservative prime minister wants to ‘change Europe from within’. The Italian bride is being heavily recruited for alliances with other right-wing forces.

Giorgia Meloni has big plans for the European elections. Last weekend she announced that she would withdraw the European list of her Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), a right-wing conservative party with a fascist past. Meloni will not sit in the European Hemisphere. But she seizes the opportunity to demonstrate how successful her right-wing policies are. Her European ambitions are great. As leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), she wants to ‘unleash a revolution in European policy’.

Meloni is not the shouty type. After her appointment as prime minister at the end of 2022, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, hired Meloni. The two ladies often hung out together. For the signing of migration agreements, for example. Migration is simply a theme that is eternally smoldering in Italian politics. Meloni stayed far from the red lines: she refrained from thundering about the ‘European super state’ and fully went along with the European Ukraine story. Even though Italy has been politically and economically intertwined with Russia in recent decades.

However, Meloni has never renounced her radical ideas. She gradually took matters into her own hands and the dynamic with Von der Leyen changed. Meloni gradually used her influence and put pressure on the Commission President, for example to weaken legislation such as the European Green Deal and to halve the use of pesticides.

The compliance at the European level contrasts with its conservative domestic approach. Meloni imitates the right-wing radical, often even ‘illiberal’ recipes of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. A critical conversation on the Rai with Antonio Scurati, a well-known author on fascism, was censored. European freedoms are at risk. The rights of gay and lesbian couples are being restricted, and hiring surrogate mothers is a criminal offense. Rave parties are prohibited by law.

The ‘orbanization’ of Italy is not gaining much momentum in the rest of Europe. And Meloni’s good contacts in ultra-conservative conferences such as CPAC are also turned a blind eye. Meloni limps on two legs. She is causing a conservative wind to blow in her own country. But she is careful not to cross European red lines, like losing weight to Ukraine.

Meloni also likes to present itself as the loyal European and NATO partner. In that capacity, she built up good relations with both former American President Donald Trump and his successor Joe Biden. It means that Meloni, as one of the few leaders from major EU countries, will hardly face any opposition from a re-elected Donald Trump.

It is unclear whether Meloni will use that accumulated political capital to ‘unleash a revolution in European policy’. That would mean that she would adjust her strategy and follow in Orban’s footsteps in Europe to engage in power politics. EU experts do not see that happening immediately. A strong score for her Fratelli party could become important for how the cards lie after the European elections from June 6 to 9.

Preliminary polls indicate that the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) remains the largest party with 173 seats out of 720. The Social Democrats of S&D are facing a slight loss of seats, but remain the second party with 140 seats. The liberal Renew loses more feathers and the Greens even lose a third of their electorate, according to the latest official polls from April. These declining figures could bother Von der Leyen, who wants to succeed herself as president of the European Commission. The centre-right EPP, the Socialists and the Liberals have formed her governing coalition over the past five years.

The rise of extreme parties on the right and left is striking. The membership of the extreme and conservative right is increasing and could increase from 153 seats now to 163 or more out of the 720 seats in the European Parliament. In that scenario, the two radical right and right-wing conservative groups in the European Parliament are combined. The first is Identity and Democracy (ID), the faction that includes Vlaams Belang, the German Alternative for Germany and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. The right-wing conservative reform party ECR is home to a more colorful mix: the Italian Fratelli d’Italia of Meloni, the radical right-wing Spanish Vox, the Polish nationalists of PiS and also the three elected representatives of the N-VA.

A right-wing joining of forces will only be effective if those parties can work together in the European Parliament. The two factions are deeply divided on this issue. Some right-wing radical parties, such as Geert Wilders’ PVV, have been enthusiastic about an exit from the European Union for years. Due to the formation consultation in the Netherlands, that wish is now in brackets. Other like-minded parties in Europe are more critical of an exit strategy.

Within the right-wing radical ID, many parties are pro-Russian. The Polish PiS party and Swedish Democrats fully support Ukraine. Voters from the Hungarian Fidesz, the Austrian freedom party FPÖ and the German AfD want to force Ukraine towards a negotiated political solution to the conflict with Russia.

The unity of those radical right and conservative factions is limited to say the least. Finally, 57 radical right and nationalist European elected officials do not belong to either of the two far-right factions, including the Hungarian Fidesz members of Prime Minister Orban’s party.

Orban is the leader of the conservative ‘new right’ and identifies with the ideas of American presidential candidate Donald Trump. Orban led the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest last week, a forum that opposes migration, gender ideology and everything a liberal society stands for.

Orban has been a disruptor in Europe for some time, with his repeated vetoes, visits to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the development of an illiberal society in Hungary, without rainbows and gender issues. “I will not leave Europe, but change the European Union from within,” he said early this year.

Orban would prefer to enter into a grand coalition with Meloni’s ECR, the far-right ID and the center-right European People’s Party. This will be difficult because of the difficult cooperation between the two extreme right-wing formations. And it is unthinkable that the EPP would cooperate with Orban, party members say. Orban was brought into the EPP by Wilfried Martens at the time. Ultimately, Fidesz was expelled from the EPP about three years ago, after a long feud. No one has forgotten that Orban and his fellow party members are unguided missiles.

Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s Party, went to Rome last year in the hope of closing an alliance with the conservative Italian Fratelli. Whether anything will ever come of this will only become clear the night after the elections.

Von der Leyen also pulls at Meloni’s sleeves. She needs a majority to support her in the European Parliament. Von der Leyen does not want to collaborate with the far-right ID faction. She leaves an opening for the conservative ECR faction. ‘Everything depends on the composition of the ECR and who is in the group.’ A right-wing and extreme right-wing combination makes finding a majority in the European hemisphere very difficult. The Social Democrats and the Greens threaten to withdraw support for Von der Leyen if the radical right takes part in the decision. Its tragedy is that the final plans for the formation of political formations are only made on the night after the European elections.