Less than a month after the snap parliamentary elections in which she emerged as the big winner, Giorgia Meloni (45) can call herself prime minister of Italy. Her radical right-wing and post-fascist party, Brothers of Italy, won 26 percent of the vote in September 25, making it the largest in the country.
On Friday afternoon, President Sergio Mattarella asked Meloni to form a new government. Shortly afterwards, at unprecedented speed, Meloni announced her squad of ministers. Matteo Salvini, the far-right chairman of the Lega party, misses out on his dream job at the Interior, which had once again made him responsible for Italy’s migration policy. He will be Minister of Infrastructure and Deputy Prime Minister.
The second deputy prime minister is Antonio Tajani, who will become foreign minister. Tajani, the former president of the European Parliament, is a leader of Forza Italia, the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Those three parties went to voters with a splinter group in one right-wing bloc and together achieved 44 percent. They will now rule Italy, in the most right-wing government since the country became a republic in 1946.
The new government will be sworn in on Saturday morning at ten o’clock. Two more confidence votes will follow later in the two chambers of parliament. Since the right-wing coalition around Meloni has a comfortable majority there, that is a formality.
Nationalist and conservative
With Giorgia Meloni, Italy will have a woman as prime minister for the first time, as well as a politician from a party with clear roots in fascism. Brothers of Italy is not neo-fascist, but radical right, nationalistic and outspokenly conservative on ethical-medical issues.
Meloni campaigned hard in which she did not shy away from the far-right language, and considers Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the far-right party Spanish Vox as political allies. Shortly after her election victory, she moderated her language in an attempt to reassure the European Union and the international community, primarily the financial markets, that she would follow the line of the outspoken pro-European and pro-Atlantic Prime Minister Mario Draghi. continue.
Also partly because of this, the informal formation negotiations with her right-wing allies did not go smoothly. First because Salvini continued to aspire to the post of the Interior, a position he already held in 2018 and 2019. Then he refused migrant NGO boats entry to Italy, putting him on a collision course with the European Union. There is therefore still a lawsuit against Salvini in Italy, and that is partly why Meloni did not want him to take up that post again. She chooses Matteo Piantedosi, who was already prefect in Rome (a local deputy of the Interior), and, as Salvini’s former chief of staff, is close to the Lega leader.
But the biggest firebrand in these formation negotiations turned out not to be Salvini, but Silvio Berlusconi. The former prime minister managed to forge a center-right alliance for the first time in 1994, bringing the Lega and the post-fascists on board. He would rule with them in every government he led. Berlusconi cannot bear the fact that the balance of power within that right-wing bloc has changed and that Giorgia Meloni is now its leader. The former prime minister was furious that Meloni did not comply with his demands for ministerial posts. The low point was a leaked audio recording in which Berlusconi boasted about his friendship with Vladimir Putin.
By being highly critical of Italian military support to Ukraine at the same time, Berlusconi put his party colleague Tajani’s ministerial position in serious jeopardy. He hastily assured the European People’s Party, to which Forza Italia belongs, that he and the party are convinced of the pro-European and pro-Atlantic course. Tajani wants to guarantee that course in the new Italian government. In Europe he already showed himself to be a moderate politician, including as President of the European Parliament.
Giorgia Meloni did not give in to Berlusconi’s Justice Department claim for his party. Berlusconi still has some legal problems. For the position, important for investor confidence, she appointed Carlo Nordio, a former magistrate. The crucial post of Economics and Finance goes to Giancarlo Giorgetti of Salvini’s Lega party.
Pragmatic
Giorgetti is known not as a radical right-wing ideologue, but as a pragmatist, respected for his economic insight. In the Draghi government, he was Minister of Economic Development and worked closely with Minister of Economy Daniele Franco. He had in an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera only praise for Giorgetti, who also got on well with Mario Draghi. He attended his last European summit as head of government on Thursday and Friday. At his international departure, Draghi described Italy as “a strong country, with enormous potential and credibility”.
On the economic and foreign policy front, Meloni seems to want to continue Draghi’s course. But the squad also includes ministers with controversial pasts, such as Roberto Calderoli, a man who offends minorities who once compared black Italian politician Cécile Kyenge to an orangutan. Calderoli (Lega) becomes Minister of Regional Affairs and Autonomy.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of October 22, 2022