Hidden in the greenery of Arcore, a rural community just outside Milan, in the rich northern Italian region of Lombardy, lies the stately, ocher yellow country house of Villa San Martino. From 1974 until the beginning of this week, the eighteenth-century villa, once a Benedictine monastery, was home to one of the most famous and most controversial politicians in Europe: Silvio Berlusconi.
The villa, restored in neoclassical style, has a library with ten thousand books, a unique collection of paintings and a large park. In it, Berlusconi had his own mausoleum built from travertine and Carrara marble, with a place for himself as well as a final resting place for close relatives and his closest friends.
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Admirers and mourners have left a flower, a scarf from Berlusconi’s former football club AC Milan or a word of thanks at the beginning of the long driveway to the villa. Walter Valagussa, 64, a retired truck driver, admits he came to take a look out of sheer curiosity. The notorious sex parties in this villa in particular appeal to his imagination. “In his private life, everyone does what he wants,” says Valagussa, “but he was prime minister, and his scandals made him blackmailable.”
But for decades this villa was also the place where Berlusconi set Italian government policy or the opposition course. After the death of its founder, the Forza Italia party remains orphaned. “For 30 years, Forza Italia was Silvio Berlusconi’s one-man show,” says Franco Pavoncello, president of John Cabot University in Rome’s Trastevere district. “He did not appoint any successors while alive, because he needed the political power to safeguard the financial interests of his family empire.”
Forza Italia, a coalition partner of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, has thus been a beheaded party since this week. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani is very likely to be elected as interim chairman until a new party congress. But Tajani is not yet on Berlusconi’s heels in terms of charisma or political ingenuity.
Chess game
The party that convinced only 8 percent of voters in September last year can try to continue on its own, but there is also a risk that the right-liberal party will now implode. Meloni, who saw to it that Berlusconi was buried with the highest honors on Wednesday, extended his hand to the voters and elected officials of Forza Italia with that ultimate tribute. The message: with us you will find a safe new home. Meloni may be aiming for a merger. Then the European People’s Party (EPP), to which Forza Italia belongs as the only major Italian party, comes within reach for Meloni. It would be a nice gain, in the run-up to the European elections in 2024.
The game of chess, with two female opponents, has only just begun. A merger would be against the will of Berlusconi’s partner Marta Fascina. In addition, we look forward to what Giorgia Meloni and Berlusconi’s eldest daughter Marina will mean to each other. The Prime Minister hugged and kissed Marina Berlusconi very ostentatiously at her father’s funeral, a clear political signal in addition to human support.
Not only Forza Italia remains orphaned, without Berlusconi’s political protection his media company Mediaset has also become more vulnerable. Meloni is in a position to prevent a hostile takeover. To this end, it can use the ‘golden power’ with which the Italian government protects strategically important companies.
In return, she can ask Marina Berlusconi to guarantee the stability of Forza Italia, and thus of the centre-right bloc that now runs the country. Even after Berlusconi’s death, politics, media power and the fate of the government in Italy are still closely intertwined. Meloni has a lot of trumps up his sleeve. She has long since cashed in on Berlusconi’s political legacy and assumed the leadership of the centre-right coalition. “The Italian prime minister is very strong,” says Bill Emmott, Italy expert and former editor-in-chief of the British magazine The Economists.
The radical right Meloni does not even have to move to the political center to fill the vacuum left by the right-liberal Berlusconi. “His death will not affect her policy in any way,” predicts Emmott. “From her stance on migration, the LGBTI community, to her opposition to abortion and surrogacy, her policies are those of Berlusconi when he ruled. She is also pro-Europe and pro-NATO, as Berlusconi was as prime minister.”
The only difference is that Berlusconi continued to support his political friend Vladimir Putin during this scorching war. Berlusconi’s pro-Putin statements embarrassed Meloni more than once in Europe. The disruptor disappears. In this way, her power, also outside Italy, can continue to grow unhindered. She is a voting machine, which makes her very attractive to the European People’s Party. Not only did EPP president Manfred Weber attend Berlusconi’s funeral, there has also been a political flirtation between him and Meloni for some time, with a view to possible cooperation towards the European elections of 2024.
Neo-fascism
First, the image may need some polishing. Brothers of Italy proudly cherishes its roots in the fascism of dictator Benito Mussolini. The party logo still features the flame in the national tricolor, a well-known symbol of neo-fascism and the extreme right in Europe. Most likely, Meloni would not repeat today that the “good politician” Mussolini “did everything he did for Italy.” But she won’t snub the nostalgics in Italy too much.
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Whether, and in what form, her party would cooperate with the EPP has not yet been determined. But Meloni is completely pro-European, she supports Ukraine, believes in the rule of law, and thus meets the wish list of the European Christian Democrats. The fact that Meloni’s right-wing government defends a tough migration policy that amounts to closed borders and agreements with third countries to repatriate migrants has long since ceased to cause a stir in Europe. In fact, an important part of the EU sees this as the course to follow. For Meloni, in the footsteps of Berlusconi, the zeitgeist is all right.
A version of this article also appeared in the June 17, 2023 newspaper.