Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been eyeing Brussels for months. Having consolidated her power in Italy, with a stable Executive without a prominent opposition, she intends to expand her influence in the European Union. She has done so by building great personal relationships with the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen – something that has generated attention from Paris and Berlin – and also by making an effort to present herself to Italians as a leader whose voice is heard in the EU. with results such as the agreement with Tunisia to stop the departure of migrants.
The objective is clear: that the European group that she chairs, the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), is at the heart of a conservative majority in the next European Parliament that will be born from the community elections in June. . Meloni is determined that her group – which already has groups such as Vox or the Poles of Law and Justice (PiS) as members – ends up being the third force in the European Parliament behind the European People's Party (EPP) and the Socialist Party. European (PSE), and ahead of the liberals of Renew and their rivals on the far right, Identity and Democracy (ID), of which the parties of Matteo Salvini (League) and Marine Le Pen (National Association) are part.
Meloni's latest signing could help her with her campaign. The ECR parliamentary group has just set foot in France by welcoming into its ranks MEP Nicolas Bay, from the Reconquista party of ultra-French Éric Zemmour. Bay, a former representative of Le Pen's party, left to join Reconquista and, after a season in the non-attached group, is now a member of the ECR. Although Zemmour's party is not officially part of the ECR, the entry of his MEP is a clear political signal that he will end up being one.
“The group of Conservatives and Reformists is our natural family, to fight against illegal immigration, to defend the identity of Europe, to defend a balance between ecology and economic needs and national sovereignty, but also to fight against propaganda LGBT and woke propaganda”, declared Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the head of Reconquista's list for the community elections. The alliance is also familiar, as it is no secret that Marine Le Pen's niece is married to Vincenzo Sofo, a Brothers of Italy MEP.
With her at the head of the campaign, Zemmour aspires to achieve six or seven MEPs, a haul that would increase the strength of the ECR while waiting for another key accession to be confirmed, that of Viktor Orbán's Fidesz. The Hungarian Prime Minister, orphaned in Europe since he left the EPP after a long disagreement, has indicated that he intends to enter the ECR after the elections. Those from Meloni are currently opting for caution and indicate that Fidesz has not yet formally presented a petition.
Nicola Procaccini, exponent of Brothers of Italy and co-president of the ECR group, explains to La Vanguardia that what they want is to “bring the right to the center and bring the center to the right.” That is, “that parties like Reconquista can have a more pragmatic approach and at the same time that the more centrist parties are more determined in the defense of national interests.” “Clearly our privileged interlocutors are the EPP, with whom we vote on most of the laws, but a good part of the Identity and Democracy delegations and also some of Renew, with whom we agree, for example, on the farmers' protest against the green deal” , assures Procaccini.
The issue is thorny. Four months before the community vote, these additions could undermine the moderate image that Meloni has been trying to nurture in Brussels for some time. The new leader of the liberals, Valérie Hayer, from Emmanuel Macron's party, has already made it clear that with Zemmour the ECR has crossed a “red line”. Meloni's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, leader of Forza Italia since the death last year of Silvio Berlusconi, has also said he does not share "a single word of what Zemmour says."
