The Italian far right wins the elections and fascism is consolidated in Europe
Updated: Nov 23, 2022
The conservative, neofascist and populist coalition Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), led by Giorgia Meloni, wins the Italian elections with 44% of the vote in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
Giorgia Meloni becomes the first woman to preside over the Italian Government in the history of the Republic. Comparing the current results with those of 2018, Brothers of Italy has multiplied the results obtained by six, going from obtaining 4.3% to 26%.
Experts in international politics say that this victory is nonsense for Europe. Emma Bonino, former European commissioner and leader of More Europe, recently assured in an interview for RNE that this electoral result sent "a message of hostility towards the European Union" and represented sympathy with political figures such as Putin or Trump.
On the other hand, Italian analysts assure that the majority of electoral proposals do not usually come to pass, not even by a third as far as Italy is concerned. Meloni's party proposals are summarized in 25 points, of which it is important to analyse the most controversial points: support for birth and family, Italian pride or Made in Italy, fossil energy and nuclear, and loyalty to NATO and the Western bloc.
Birth and family support
The first point of the Brothers of Italy political program has as its main objective to stop the country's demographic decline. To do so, Meloni advocates applying the first part of Law 194, entitled "Law for the social protection of maternity and on the voluntary interruption of pregnancy."
The new president of the Italian Government spoke weeks ago, assuring that her objective is “to offer an alternative to women who are thinking of having an abortion for economic reasons. These women have to find a friendly State by their side: more opportunities and not fewer rights”. Her goal is to prevent women from aborting, and for this she proposes financial aid to families.
In addition, the coalition is strongly in favour of traditional families; excluding people belonging to the LGBT community. According to Meloni herself, she said in Marbella, what she wants for Italy is: “Yes to the natural family, no to LGBT lobbies”. This endangers the rights of same-sex couples and dissenting identities.
Nuclear and fossil energy
At point 17 of his program, Meloni bets on clean, safe and affordable energy. That is why, although it has been rejected before, the right-wing party is committed to implementing nuclear energy as a solution to the current crisis.
As she expressed in his participation in a Vox rally in Marbella last June, "following an ideology like that of Greta Thunberg will lead us to lose thousands of companies and millions of jobs throughout Europe", an ideology that ensures that it is “climate fundamentalism”. She believes that the only way to save Italy and Europe from the crisis caused by the Ukraine war is to reactivate closed nuclear power plants, increase domestic gas production and build new gas infrastructure.
Strengthen its position in NATO and build loyalty with the Western bloc
The controversy on this point stems from the discrepancies between Meloni and his political allies -international and his own coalition - regarding NATO.
While the leader of the Fratelli d'Italia positions herself in favour of NATO and assures that it is an untouchable point in her program, her allies - Salvini and Berlusconi, known for their right-wing and anti-immigrant policies - assure that there is no need to maintain an Atlantic Alliance.
In the last point of his program "Italy, protagonist in Europe and in the world", he says that "after too many years of marginalization under leftist governments, Italy must once again be a protagonist in Europe, in the Mediterranean and on the international scene. ". With this, the party seeks a foreign policy focused on protecting the national interest and the defence of the homeland, advocating the defence of "the classical and Judeo-Christian roots of Europe", since they believe it is necessary to restore the centrality of the Mediterranean in the both Italian and European policies.
Bring back Italian pride and unity
The new president often makes use of social networks, a fact that will be crucial in her goal to recover "the pride of being Italian." Her objective is to create an online platform called Made in Italy where they can promote the key elements that make Italy stand out from other countries, as part of its gastronomy, its architecture or any type of product of Italian origin that allow.
Brothers from Italy have ensured that they will work to recover the unity of the country and that Italians once again feel worthy of being so, in order to once again feel proud of "Italian excellence". Meloni assures that she has a great responsibility, but that she will work to improve the country through her new policies.
Italy is not the only European country in which there has been a rise of the extreme right, since although in Hungary and Poland the conservative parties were already in charge, now it is other countries such as Sweden, Bulgaria and Germany that have joined the growing far-right movement that, once again, is expanding throughout Europe.