Photo: AP Photo/Alessandra TarantinoThe extreme right has a new bright star shining from Rome on the European Union. Giorgio Meloni, in coalition with Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, won an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in Italy. It is a blow to the otherwise questionable European unity, which has only strengthened under the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The European right has a new star shining brightly from Rome. According to unofficial results, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, Giorgio Meloni, has succeeded in what Marine Le Pen has been unsuccessfully trying for so long: she has an absolute majority in Italy, a country that is one of the founders of the European Union and a member of NATO, with the third largest economy. EU. No, of course, alone, but in a coalition with hardened right-wingers Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini. The brothers of Italy have grown by over 20 percent since the election four years ago, Giorgio Meloni has become the "sister of the Italians".
Extreme right-wingers across Europe are jubilant, happy congratulations are coming from the ranks of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the French National Assembly, Poland's PiS, Viktor Orbán's Hungarian Fidesz.
"We are celebrating with Italy!", AfD member of parliament Beatrix von Storch said on Telegram. "Sweden in the north, Italy in the south: left-wing governments are yesterday's story. This is a good day for Italy, a good day for Europe!". The right wing won the last elections in Sweden as well.
"Congratulations to Djordje Meloni!", the Prime Minister of Poland also wrote on Telegram, and his Spanish right-wing colleagues from the Vox party: "Melloni showed everyone the way to a proud and free Europe of sovereign nations."
Right-wing brothers and sisters from Europe are mocking the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who said before the Italian elections that the EU has a "tool" to restrain a possible far-right government in Rome, if it ignores EU rules. How these "tools" (do not) work in practice can be seen on the example of Viktor Orbán.
"No threats can stop democracy in Europe. The peoples of Europe have raised their heads and are taking their destiny into their own hands!", said the European representative of the National Gathering, Jordan Bordella.
The forces "against the Brussels dictatorship" have a new leader.
Fears in Brussels
For the administration and leadership of the EU in Brussels and Strasbourg, Giorgia Meloni is a monster from the worst nightmares that they found in real life when they woke up on Monday. From the ranks of the German Social Democrats comes the assessment that Giorgia Meloni will be the prime minister "whose models are Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump", that she is "a danger to the unity of the EU", that with her "the European autocrats will get a lobbyist in the Council of Europe", who will "pouring sand into the European engine".
In a similar tone, the reaction of the German Greens: Europe's third economy will have an undemocratic and anti-European government.
With the victory of the Brothers of Italy, the traditional pro-European Christian Democratic and Social Democratic parties suffered the biggest blow since the founding of the EU. Big crises, as a rule, bring extremes to the surface. Europe is at a crossroads, and the arrival, as the liberal media reports, of "neo-fascists" or "post-fascists" or simply "fascists" in power in Rome does not bode well for the values cultivated in Europe since the end of World War II.
Colorful right-wing troupe
The victory of the coalition of the extreme, "post-fascist" right gathered around the Brothers of Italy caused an earthquake in Europe. The four-time Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi (85), famous for his "bunga bunga" parties, is emerging from the political mothball, the man who "established tax evasion" in Italian politics, and recently found justifications for Putin's "special operation" in Ukraine, writes the German "Spiegel". , and who is now seen as the President of the Senate.
There is also Matteo Salvini (49), the former interior minister who in 2009 proposed the "racial separation" of migrants on public transport.
And in the middle, Giorgia Meloni (45), the future president of the Italian government, who repeatedly repeated that the EU is carrying out a "population exchange financed by big capital", which is "an extreme right-wing conspiracy theory narrative in its purest form", writes "Spiegel" and states: "Good prospects not only for Rome, but also for Brussels, where the group of anti-agitators will be strengthened."
And further: The tender seed of unity, which has grown significantly in the EU recently against Russia, could soon be destroyed." The gap between the progressive forces and those who are holding back the Union will deepen even more.
"Giorgia Meloni comes from the neo-fascist party that erected a monument to Italy's greatest war criminal who committed genocide," wrote Spiegel's Rome correspondent Frank Hornig. "Germany disgusts her, she does not seek contact with Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron, but with the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán."
Is everything really so terrible?
"Spiegel" moderates the apocalyptic predictions with the hope that the unity between the "two gentlemen and a lady" will not last long, because there was already a "creaking" between them during the election campaign.
Secondly, Meloni is clearly against Putin and for Ukraine, which is the most important decision in Europe at the moment, and 200 billion euros of aid for recovery from the crisis caused by the corona pandemic should arrive from Brussels in Italy, so if it is also because of money, that is the reason so that the right-wing brothers and sisters don't go against the EU institutions.
And under three, "Spiegel" concludes: Italy is a functional democracy in which power is divided, so "there is hope", "at least a little".
And where are we in all this, is the famous question whenever something shocking happens in the world and in Europe? Aleksandar Vučić's best political friend is Viktor Orban, who is the political role model of Djordje Meloni. With the mediation of the Hungarian Prime Minister, a meeting between the Serbian President and the Italian Prime Minister, who could turn out to be "another friend of Serbia in the EU", should be expected in the near future. And Solz and Macron will have additional, more important tasks than to force Vučić to recognize the independence of Kosovo.
Instead of Serbia adapting to functional European, liberal democracies, those beautiful principles of human rights and freedoms, Europe took a step in the direction of Serbian autocracy with the victory of the Brothers of Italy.
But, as the "Spiegel" correspondent from Rome said, there is hope. At least small ones. It's just that for now it's not really clear how and when this negative historical cycle could be reversed.
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