Meloni positioned herself as an influencer in Brussels ahead of battle for EU posts By Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse
Europe follows Italy's lead, said a black-clad Georgia Meloni under the bright sun, raining down on Albania's new migrant reception centres.
Italy's Prime Minister has struck a Rwandan-style deal with Tirana, which is expected to become operational and take in 3,000 people in month to August.
The timing of her visit was calculated and thought out, like Madame Meloni herself. It was just days before this weekend's European Parliament elections, which her Brothers of Italy party, heirs to Mussolini's fascists, are predicted to win.
“With Georgia, Italy changes Europe,” was the ubiquitous motto. at the final rally before the vote on June 8-9.
Italy's first female prime minister is positioning herself as a Brussels kingmaker ahead of a post-election battle for position and power in the EU.
For The 47-year-old is being courted by both ardent centrist Europhiles and far-right Eurosceptics.
It's a surprising turnaround for a pariah who was denounced as a populist and neo-fascist when she succeeded internationally respected technocrat Mario Draghi as prime minister in October 2022.
In her inaugural speech to the Italian parliament, she described herself as » «outsider» and «outsider.»
In less than two years, she's taken stunning internet selfies with Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, visited Joe Biden at the White House, exchanged jokes with Rishi Sunak and is now leading the presidency Italy in the G7.
Ms Meloni exchanged jokes with Rishi Sunak during the Nato summit. Photo: LUDOVIK MARIN/via REUTERS 
Giorgia Meloni eclipsed her Albanian counterpart, 6ft 7in Edi Rama. Photo: AGF/Shutterstock
The 5ft 3in Italian prime minister dwarfed his 6ft 7in Albanian counterpart Edi Rama during their press conference in front of Italian, EU and Albanian flags this week.
But in the world of European politics, it is Ms Meloni who is the big beast and whose influence is at its peak.
“This agreement can be replicated in many countries and can be part of a structural solution for the European Union,” said He. Ms Meloni said
Most EU countries, 15 of the 27 member states, have called on the European Commission to follow the “Italian model”, she said. She added that even Germany was interested.
Ms Meloni has offered herself as a bridge between non-EU Albania, a candidate country for joining the bloc, and EU states.
Mr Rama, frustrated that Albania is being kept in the waiting room for a decade, jumped at the opportunity to win support from the bloc's founding member, which is bearing the brunt of Europe's migration crisis.
Unlike the Rwanda Plan, which was beset by legal problems, asylum seekers whose If the expedited procedure is successful, entry into Italy will be allowed.
Unsuccessful migrants from those picked up at sea and taken to Albania for processing will be deported.
Ylva Johansson, the migration commissioner, said last year: «Our legal team's preliminary assessment is that this does not violate EU law, but is outside the EU.» law.»
Brussels finds itself in a difficult position. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, did her best to win over the Eurosceptic Ms Meloni.
Just a few months earlier, Ms von der Leyen had welcomed the new migration deal with great fanfare. with Tunisia, one of several similar EU agreements with North African countries.
She was flanked by Mark Rutte, the pro-European veteran Dutch prime minister, and Ms Meloni.
>“We are here as Team Europe,” said center-right Ms von der Leyen, firmly bringing Ms Meloni’s hard-line approach to migration into the mainstream.
It was another pragmatic alliance for a leader who has skillfully cemented his right-wing coalition in Rome, where governments rarely last long.
The coalition includes the centre-right Forza Italia party, a member of Ms von der Leyen's European People's Party (EPP), founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi.
Its third member is the far-right League, led by the irascible, pro-Putin Eurosceptic Matteo Salvini, whose jealousy of Ms Meloni's superior authority is an open secret.
The rise of the Brussels kingmaker
So how did it happen? the woman who flirted with fascism and recently accused Brussels of wanting to force people to eat insects to fight climate change has been given the keys to the EU establishment?
After all, she described the EU as «rotten to the core» «and called for Italy to leave the bloc in Brexit style.
Her first foreign trip as prime minister was to Brussels. «I want to send a signal of our desire to work with the EU and defend our national interests,» she told the leaders of its institutions.
She focused on migration, but also backed the EU on Ukraine and the cost of its living crisis.
Since then, Ms Meloni has earned a reputation as a «constructive partner» at EU summits and a centrist traitor among some of Europe's far-right parties.
At the June summit last year, the Italian prime minister tried to reach a compromise agreement between anti-migrant Poland and Hungary and other member states on migration policy. This failed, but her value as a bridge to the populist right was demonstrated.
After her first 100 days in office, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, thanked her for the «responsibility» she had brought to office.
Her periodic bouts of criticism of Brussels are now largely forgiven or ignored by her fellow prime ministers and presidents.
As a result, Meloni can exchange kisses with ardent Europhile Emmanuel Macron at the European Council while simultaneously appearing at rallies of the far-right Spanish party Vox, calling for national sovereignty.
This year she stepped up anti-network actions. absence of tractor protests at high-level leaders' discussions. Having pulled Europe to the right on migration, she hopes to do the same with what she calls a “holy war” on climate change.
Support for Ukraine
Such influence would not be possible without her support for Ukraine and her opposition to Vladimir Putin , whom she had expressed admiration for before the invasion.
It was only then that Mrs. von der Leyen, an ardent supporter of Ukraine and the European center right, was able to contact her.
The women traveled together to Kyiv with the prime minister Canadian Minister Justin Trudeau and Alexander De Croo. , Prime Minister of Belgium, on the two-year anniversary of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later said of Ms Meloni: “We have a very strong relationship on a human level.”
Italian The prime minister met with Zelensky on the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: FILIPPO ATTILI/Shutterstock
Few European politicians can support both Zelensky and Putin ally Viktor Orban, but Ms Meloni can.
The Hungarian prime minister is a Brussels pariah for his opposition to EU sanctions on the Kremlin.
But he is an unabashed admirer of Ms Meloni, whom he urged to join forces with Marine Le Pen after the European elections.
Mr Orban hopes a new “sovereign” supergroup of anti-European parties can wield unprecedented influence in the new European Parliament.
During the election campaign, the Italian prime minister speaks out on the subject of Eurosceptics, accusing the EU of being a “paradise for bureaucrats,” warning Brussels against abuses and describing the elections as “a kind of referendum between two opposing views of Europe.”
Right-wing Europe
After elections over the next five years will see intense competition for top EU positions, including the presidency of the European Commission, as well as for the formation of parliamentary groups.
Groups of like-minded parties form cross-border groups. alliances to qualify for funding, speaking time in parliament and influence on EU legislation.
Europe's right is currently divided into three groups.
Ms von der Leyen's EPP, which includes Forza Italia, has long worked in an informal grand coalition with other pro-European parties to pass EU laws.
Ms Meloni's European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which includes Poland's Law and Justice party, is Eurosceptic, anti-Putin and, by some estimates, votes for the EPP seven times out of ten.
The hard part — The Right Identity and Democracy (ID) group includes Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Salvini's League and Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom and is under a cordon sanitaire that keeps it from having any real influence in Brussels and Strasbourg.
As in Italy and France, Eurosceptic parties are predicted to win in five more member states and come second or third in another 10.
The ID and ESR are predicted to receive about 20 MEPs each and become the fourth and fifth largest groups after counting the votes of about 370 million people in 27 countries.
Ms Le Pen called on Ms Meloni to form a new alliance that could become the second largest group after the EPP.
“I believe that she and I have agreed on the main issues, including taking back control of our countries,” she told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Based on Ms Meloni’s plans , Ms Le Pen disavowed her previous admiration for Putin when Germany's pro-Russian far-right AfD was recently expelled from the ID.
Mr Orban, who hopes to join the ECR, noted: «The future of the sovereignist The camp in Europe and the right in general are now in the hands of two women.»
Ms Meloni, who admits she has «common ground» with Ms Le Pen, is holding her cards close to the vest. to yourself.
Agnese Ortolani of the Economist Intelligence Unit predicted that the supergroup would not emerge, saying that: «[It] will lose political influence if it is associated with parties seen as toxic.»
The EPP would welcome Ms Meloni in her political family, which is increasingly adopting her tone on migration and net zero. . Ms von der Leyen wants her support to back her bid for a second term as head of the Commission.
Socialists and Democrats, Greens and Liberals remain concerned about a possible EPP-ECR coalition that would shift parliament sharply to the right.
The Greens have warned Ms von der Leyen that they will oppose her candidacy for a second term. term if she forms a Conservative alliance, which she has not ruled out.
But Ms. Meloni may choose to stay put and maintain the leverage she has amassed during her two years in power.
< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/d87707ed9890a6b56acc9a837edc4f27.jpg" />Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, did her best to court the Eurosceptic Ms Meloni. Photo: Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse
Karel Lannu, executive director of the Center for European Policy Research, said Ms Meloni would demand her party's influential role in the new Commission as payment for her support for Ms von der Leyen.
«She's a good political navigator, but she stands for a far-right agenda,» he said.
Ms Meloni's plan is to act as a bridge again.
“The real challenge is to create a different majority than the one we have seen in recent times five years, namely an unnatural majority between the European People's Party and the Socialists,” Ms. Meloni said on Monday.
“I want to try to achieve a difficult but exciting task: to repeat in Europe what has been done in Italy, uniting parties are compatible in their views, despite completely different nuances… and send the left into opposition.»
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