The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has decided to turn the European elections into a plebiscite on her management. The leader of the Brothers of Italy announced this Sunday that she will head her party’s lists for the European elections next June, following in the footsteps of the opposition leader, the social democrat Elly Schlein, who did the same last week. .
“I do it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and in Europe,” he said during a congress of his party in the Adriatic city of Pescara. “We are facing a decisive battle that does not allow mistakes. We must all be prepared to do our part and I, as always, intend to do mine,” she explained, before announcing that she will run as a candidate. It was something that was already clear with the electoral campaign posters of Brothers of Italy, which place Meloni as the clear protagonist.
Meloni, like Schlein, has no intention of leaving the front line of Italian politics to move to the European Parliament, a position incompatible with that of Italian prime minister. But they do both believe that her name on the ballots would boost her formations in elections that in Italy risk going into the background. When she is elected, Meloni will resign from her seat and continue in Rome.
This type of false candidacy for the European elections is common in Italy, with the simple objective of attracting more voters. So will the leader of Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani, Meloni’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Of course, Meloni has promised that she will not use her time as head of the Executive to dedicate herself to the electoral campaign.
There are many who consider this practice to be an insult to voters. Romano Prodi, former president of the European Commission, said it. “Asking voters to give their vote to a person who will not go to Brussels is a wound to democracy,” he warned. Another former Italian premier, now at the head of the 5 Star Movement, Giuseppe Conte – an ally of the PD in many local elections – thinks the same, who believes that “the leaders who run are deceiving the voters.”
With this decision, and by presenting the community elections as a vote for her management, Meloni not only turns them into a large-scale political poll, but also the first major duel between her and Schlein, the head of the opposition, who still He has not directly faced Meloni at the polls. According to the polls, Brothers of Italy will comfortably win the European elections with over 27% of the votes, while Schlein’s Democratic Party will hold back at over 20%.
With the party clear at home, in reality, Meloni will be much more aware of what happens in other countries with his allies in the group of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), such as Law and Justice in Poland or Vox in Spain. This Sunday he once again defended his commitment to a rapprochement between the European ultra-conservatives and the classic right of the European People’s Party to displace the socialists, following the model of the coalition that governs Italy, formed by the Brothers of Italy, Forza Italia and the League. “We want to create a majority that unites the center-right forces and send the opposition to the left also in the European Union. It will be difficult, but it is possible and we must try,” he defended.
Polls in Italy predict results quite similar to those of the 2022 general elections. The only big change is the advance of Forza Italia to Matteo Salvini’s League, which, in order to attract new voters, announced a few days ago that their candidate would be Roberto Vannacci, a general suspended for his homophobic and racist opinions.
