Giorgia Meloni speaks strongly against Russia, but the other leaders of the value-conservative right-wing government do not.
Energy crisis. Economic recession. EU recovery money and much-needed reforms.
Here are just a few of the challenges faced by the Italian Prime Minister elected yesterday by Giorgia Meloni conservative right-wing government gets ahead.
In addition to the extreme right-wing Italian Brothers party, the deputy prime minister and infrastructure minister’s portfolios will enter the government Matteo Salvini led by the right-wing populist La Lega as well as Silvio Berlusconi right-wing party Forza Italia.
The government needs unity and continuity, but there is friction between government partners even before the new ministers have taken their oaths of office.
Both Berlusconi and Salvini have been upset after missing out on certain ministerial portfolios and appointments they sought for their parties.
However, perhaps the biggest stumbling block during the government negotiations has been the relationship with Russia.
There has been an awakening in the European Union and across the Atlantic concern about the direction in which the new government, known for its pro-Russia and partly EU-criticism, will take Italy.
Meloni has worked hard to make his government coalition appear to the world to have changed: institutional and pro-European and pro-NATO.
Such a change of clothes is not easy when you stand in a crowd of hardened Russophiles.
Matteo Salvini has long been known for his positions sympathetic to Russia and has questioned the EU’s sanctions against Russia as recently as September.
In recent days, however, especially the 86-year-old Berlusconi has become an embarrassing ally for Meloni.
The news agency Lapresse reported earlier this week about the leaked tape from the meeting of the Forza Italia party in which Berlusconi said that he was “one of Putin’s five true friends”.
– I have mended my relationship a bit (President of Russia Vladimir) To Putin. Or not at all. He sent me 20 bottles of vodka and a sweet letter for my birthday, Berlusconi said.
At the same time, he shifted responsibility for the war to the president of Ukraine to Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
Melon has the whole government at stake international credibility. He can’t afford to have a scowling co-leader ruin it.
That’s why Meloni answered Berlusconi publicly and said that only parties that accept that Italy is part of Europe and the defense alliance NATO will enter his government.
– Or you don’t have to leave, he said.
According to newspaper reports, Meloni has also planned his first state visit specifically to the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, and has been in contact with Zelensky since the election victory.
In Brussels, perhaps it is also reassuring that Meloni chose as foreign minister of the new government someone who previously served as an EU commissioner and the speaker of the EU parliament Antonio Tajani.
However, Meloni still has to decide how to keep the roaring and power-hungry allies Salvini and Berlusconi at bay in the future.
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