Italy’s new far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni meets with European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday for the first time since her election, with the energy crisis expected to dominate the agenda.
Nationalist Meloni has vowed to put Italy’s interests first and the trip is being closely watched amid fears of turbulent relations between the populist government in Rome and the bloc’s power centers.
“Brussels should not do what Rome does best,” Meloni was quoted as saying in a book due to be published on Friday, criticizing “a Europe that is invasive in small things and absent in big things”.
On her first international trip since taking office, Meloni will meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and European Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola.
It will be the first face-to-face meeting since von der Leyen angered Italy’s right-wing parties ahead of September’s general election by warning of consequences should the country deviate from democratic principles.
But Italy’s first female prime minister, head of the most far-right government since World War II, will land in the Belgian capital on a diplomatic rather than a bellicose basis, political analyst Lorenzo Codogno told AFP.
“Meloni is pragmatic and wants to be perceived as a moderate and mainstream leader,” he said.
– Proceed carefully –
The head of the eurozone’s third largest economy is expected to stress the urgency of concrete European action to bring down sky-high energy prices, a fight started by her predecessor Mario Draghi.
“The real focus will be on energy… the most pressing issue with winter just around the corner,” Codogno said, adding Meloni will be determined to “show continuity with the Draghi government”.
Draghi joined other countries in calling for bloc-wide solutions to the energy crisis, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, rather than Germany’s controversial solo effort.
And Meloni too has insisted that the continent’s worst energy crisis in decades should be addressed “at the EU level”.
The trip “will not have any immediate practical consequences,” Italian daily Messaggero said, but it will help Meloni assess “the prospects” for the bloc’s help with the country’s most pressing problems.
For their part, EU leaders hope to use the meeting to “get a better understanding of what Meloni is up to,” said Sebastien Maillard, director of the Jacques Delors Institute.
“Beyond appeasement messages” — in which Meloni pledged support for NATO and the West and distanced her Brothers of Italy party from fascism — “she has remained quite vague about her intentions,” he said.
Brussels will proceed cautiously and not push Meloni towards other nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland.
There is unlikely to be a showdown over the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund, which will channel almost 200 billion euros ($197 billion) to Italy on condition it implements sweeping reforms.
While Meloni said she wants to “adjust” the plan to account for rising energy and raw material costs, those tweaks — if they come — would likely be addressed at a technical level, Codogno said.
Maillard agreed that “on economic issues (Meloni) has no interest in arguing with Brussels”.
“If she stepped out of line with Europe, it would be against Italian interests.”
But Brussels is unlikely to avoid a clash over immigration any time soon, a hot topic for the right in Italy, which has long been a front-line entry point for migrants to Europe.
