ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER Giorgia Meloni told thousands of supporters in Rome this afternoon that her party’s “clear objective” is to “build a right-wing government” in Europe, ahead of the European elections.

Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party is hoping to repeat it’s success from the September 2022 national elections at the European polls, which will be held in Italy on 8 and 9 June.

Right-wing candidates in at least nine member states, including Italy, are largely expected to top polls during this European election, according to analysis completed in January, and some right-wing leaders in Europe have urged parties join forces.

In her hour-long speech at the historic Piazza del Popolo today, Meloni characterised next week’s elections as a “referendum between two opposing visions of Europe”.

She added that the Brothers of Italy’s “clear objective” was to “build a right-wing government in Europe too and send definitively into opposition the left [...] who have done so much damage to our continent in all these years”.

Meloni also accused the EU of focusing too much on regulation – particularly on green issues – accusing it of becoming a “paradise for bureaucrats” and a “hell for those who do business”.

Meloni this week announced her candidacy for the European Parliament in a move that was viewed as an attempt to boost her party’s popularity ahead of the election.

Although mainstream parties are still expected to make up the majority of seats, polling expects that the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), of which the Brothers of Italy is a member of, and Identity and Democracy (ID).

Groupings in the European Parliament force consensus among MEPs. The size of the groups in the Parliament also determine the number of seats they will fill at committee level, where the majority of European laws are debated and negotiated. 

The ID group includes the National Rally of France’s Marine Le Pen, who recently called on Meloni to form a ‘super-group’ of the right in the European Parliament, in an interview with Italian media.

Le Pen told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that it was time for the right-leaning leaders in Europe to “unite”, suggesting that the two politicians’ parties would make up the second-largest grouping in the European Parliament if they did.

But the groups are notably divided over attitudes to Russia, with Meloni’s ECR strongly supportive of Ukraine as it defends itself against Moscow’s invading forces.

Includes reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill

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