Less than three weeks ago, Giorgia Meloni’s world was still in order. As the second half of 2024 begins, she now has her back against the wall politically. Problems are piling up both internally and externally, and it could well be that the young prime minister’s streak of luck has just ended. What happened?
At the beginning of June, Meloni was still dominating the field in Italy with her three-party far-right coalition, and in terms of foreign policy she could point to a string of respectable successes from Brussels to Washington. In the European elections, she and the Fratelli d’Italia, which she founded, clearly held the top spot in the Italian party landscape without disappointed voters, as is often the case, teaching her a lesson. And as luck would have it, Meloni also held the G7 presidency because Italy, under her second year of government, was due to take over the rotating role of coordinating the activities of the seven leading western industrial nations in 2024.
Immediately after the European elections, the Roman traveled to her favorite holiday region of Apulia, where she had invited the heads of state and government. Thousands of national and international media representatives were also there, who would spread the fame of the first woman to head an Italian government around the world, or so the calculation went. But then Meloni, who had acted tactically cleverly up to that point, made her first mistake.
Brutal action at the G-7 summit
When formulating the final document, which is customary at G-7 summits, she struggled with a topic that is actually rather unusual for a world where war and peace are at stake on a large scale: the right to abortion and the obligation of states to guarantee women appropriate support in this existential question. Negotiators from other states later reported that the Italian delegation used brute force to ensure that the word “abortion” did not appear in the final document, even though it had already been included at the previous year’s summit in Japan. Meloni’s people officially justified this action by saying that Pope Francis was attending the summit, and that this could not be expected of him given the Vatican’s clear line on the matter. In reality, however, it was also a concern of Meloni herself, who has always taken an extremely conservative stance on family policy.
This insistence not only led to an open dispute with France’s liberal President Emmanuel Macron: the look Meloni gave the Frenchman was widely shared on social networks. Other heads of state and government also grew distrustful of the Italian, who had recently been viewed as more benevolent than “pragmatic”.
Suddenly people remembered the “old” Meloni from the 2022 election campaign, who had made a name for herself with ultra-right, nationalist and post-fascist positions, with incitement against leftists and liberals, migrants and EU supporters. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was the first to react and drew a clear line at the summit in Apulia: Brussels would not work with its “very right-wing” colleague Meloni, period. And besides, it was said from summit circles that one must also see that Italy is not one of the truly dominant nations, neither in the world nor in Europe. Meloni was said to be beside herself with anger at what Macron and Scholz, two losers of the European elections, had done to her.
Salvini speaks in all seriousness of a “coup”
In the days that followed, Meloni was rejected in Brussels by the majority of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals, who, under the leadership of Scholz and Macron, unwaveringly pursued their own agenda and divided the four top positions in the EU between themselves. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, head of the right-wing populist Lega and avowed opponent of the EU, spoke in all seriousness of a “coup” in the EU: “Millions of Europeans have called for change. And what are those who have lost proposing? The same faces. We will not let them get away with that.”
Accordingly, Meloni rejected all personnel decisions in the Council of 27 heads of state and government, and abstained in the case of Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission President she previously valued. She then tweeted that the majority’s decisions were “wrong in terms of methodology and content”. Her country must finally be given the weight it deserves in Europe. The opposite is the case: Meloni, like her friend Victor Orbán from Hungary, is not only in the minority, but is increasingly becoming an outsider. A position that EU founding member Italy is neither used to, nor is it beneficial for the country, which recently received and still expects around 200 billion euros in EU reconstruction funds. This could become a problem domestically.
In any case, the opposition, which had long seemed demoralized, has been given a boost by the local elections. The Social Democrats won most of the major cities where elections were held – the first serious defeat since Meloni won the national elections so convincingly two years ago.
Racism and anti-Semitism in Meloni’s youth organization
Meloni’s critics can also feel vindicated by a depressing new issue. Journalists have gained access to Meloni’s youth organization Gioventù Nazionale and documented openly fascist, racist and anti-Semitic statements. The members include prominent figures such as a board member of the organization who was considered a young talent, and the office manager of a member of parliament for the Fratelli d’Italia.
Meloni reacted from Brussels the night after her request for a say was rejected by the other EU states. She condemned the incidents uncompromisingly, saying among other things: “Racists, anti-Semites and fascism nostalgics have no place in our party.” But it was already too late. Since then, there have been new reports, tape recordings and videos. Among others, Senator Ester Mieli, daughter of a Holocaust survivor and former spokesperson for the Jewish community in Rome, was also vilified. Mieli represents the Fratelli d’Italia in the second chamber of parliament; members of the party leadership apologized to her.
At the weekend, the grand old lady of Italian Jewry, Liliana Segre, expressed her deep concern, significantly not on public television, which is considered to be controlled by Meloni, but on a private channel: Segre lamented what was suddenly allowed to be said again in Italy, and whether she should expect to be expelled from “my country” again soon. The 93-year-old is a widely respected contemporary witness; she survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, and many of her relatives were murdered in the gas chambers. Her intervention hits the Meloni camp hard, not least because the Milanese family businesswoman is well acquainted with Fratelli d’Italia officials, namely Meloni’s close party friend, the Senate President Ignazio La Russa. He witnessed the Squadra Azzurra’s elimination from the European Football Championship in Berlin on Saturday and must now try to calm the waters in Italy together with Meloni.