If you had to describe it in one sentence relationship between them Giorgia Melony, Marine Le Pen, leader and leader of the Brotherhood of Italy National Rally (RN)In the words of analyst Marc Lazar, one has to choose what is “complex”. Meloni’s great success to date has over the years eclipsed the divisions of the country’s most extreme wing, which has quickly grown from a politically insignificant position to the largest growing force in Italy in terms of voting intent. true Europe. In public, everything was a tuning show, sincerity and understanding. And the common enemy is close ranks against European progressivism.
Again, this is not the truth for the whole block. Not so much for Meloni. Le Pen’s example is symptomatic. Just this week, Matteo Salvini, head of the Union and an ally of the current right-wing coalition, boasted in an SMS from the French far right. According to the Italians, the RN leader told him “Good luck, Matteo! Still and always with you!” Wrote. But the same thing did not happen with Meloni; No messages came from the communication between the two. Rather, silence reigned.
“Of course,” Lazar says, “Meloni and Le Pen they have common points. Both want a European Union with a greater weight of states, and criticize Islam and immigration.” There are also important differences content and values. Le Pen is much more secular than Meloni, and also by education, like Salvini, he is a member of the European political group Identity and Democracy (ID). The Reformists (ECR) “remember this French sociologist and historian, referring to this formation in a clear Atlanticist spirit. According to some rumors, there is also some distance reached because Salvini did not allow him to be Meloni’s representative in Europe. Union (EU) .
‘friend’ Abascal
don’t say different vice versa Santiago Abascal, leader of the Spanish far-right formation sound. A source from the Brothers of Italy explains that Abascal is not only part of the ECR with Meloni, but also “there is a personal relationship between the two.” The result was that, in June, Meloni joined the election campaign of Macarena Olona, who was then the Vox candidate for the head of the Andalusian Government. And this week, Meloni has come to anticipate a similar success in Spain as in Italy.
It is journalist Andrea Palladino who has been re-exploring the Abascal and Meloni galaxy in recent weeks. In an article published in digital media TPI, Palladino a thread going straight to Donald Trump’s United States, runs through Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist of the former US president. With Bannon, both Meloni and Abascal have met several times (with the Italian since at least 2018). “No one paid any attention to them back then,” Palladino recalls.
So much so, at the press conference he held with the Correspondents Association in Italy in March 2019, forbidden Not only has it openly acknowledged cooperation with the Brothers of Italy and Alternative for Germany, but also Contacts with Vox from 2017He can be heard in the recording of the meeting saying, “When they called me.” Later, in 2020, Abascal -with Hungarian Prime Minister Víktor Orban- Defended Europe’s Christian roots At the National Conservatism Conference in Rome with Meloni as stewardess.
unsolvable confusion
Nathalie Tocci, director of the Affari International (AI) institute, agrees today. Abascal is Meloni’s preferred partner in Europe. “Orban is also an ally of her, but there is some discomfort with Meloni supporting him as he is a kind of pariah in Europe,” the analyst explains. “Likewise, the relationship with Poles is oddly lukewarm,” he says. Instead, he says, “The affiliation with the Trump wing of the Republican Party has consolidated over the years of the Trump administration.” And he adds that there may be this connection. an explosive cocktail if the economic crisis continues “longer than epidemic” in Europe and Trump won the election in the United States in 2024.
Again, get away from berlin Madrid and ParisItaly’s classic allies in the EU, Italy’s former ambassador to the EU, Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, stressed that it may not be very advantageous for the new Italian government on a daily basis. The reason for this is short circuits can occur Among Meloni and other European ultranationalist formations. “Because of their ideology, nationalists think only of themselves and their constituents,” Tocci insists.
Conflict arguments are known. One of the most important of these is about immigration. Southern European countries have for years wanted those in the north to be a part of the immigrants coming to their shores. Nelli Feroci says something about countries like Poland and Hungary “not showing much interest at the moment”.