Meloni backs creation of ‘alternative’ right-wing EU coalition

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wants a new Europe, ruled by right-wing forces. 

7 June 2024
Carl Deconinck

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called for the creation of an “alternative” right-wing alliance in Brussels.

The project — which echoes calls by Marine Le Pen for the creation of a right-wing “supergroup” in the European parliament following the June elections — would reportedly be aimed at marginalizing the political left.

“My goal is to create an alternative majority to the current one in Europe, finally sending leftists of all colours into opposition,” the Italian leader said in an interview with online news outlet Il Secolo d’Italia.

“I assure you that Italy will do its full part so that the next legislature will go down in history as the beginning of the new Century: that of political Europe, of the people.”

She contrasted her vision of a Europe of Nations, “which has always been celebrated in the squares and in songs”, with the Europe of the Left, which she claimed “until a few decades ago, praised real Socialism” and the Russian “Soviet regime that suffocated peoples and national spirits”.

Meloni said she wanted the European Union to return to its roots of “sovereignty and subsidiarity”, adding her party, Fratelli d’Italia, was working on an “Italian model” for this end.

She said the ongoing European Parliament elections were seen as a contest between a Europe that wanted to continue to be a “regulator” of citizens’ lives and a Europe that, instead, wanted to recover the vision of the Founding Fathers — start again from co-operation between sovereign nations and invest in its own strategic autonomy.

“We want a Europe that deals with a few but important things, such as the common foreign and security policy, leaving everything else to the freedom and sovereignty of nations,” Meloni said.

“The Europe that we have in our minds and hearts must be able to rediscover its most precious asset: Pride in its history, its identity and its roots.

“We want a Europe that knows how to rediscover its soul, which has made it a beacon of civilisation for millennia,” she said.

“Because we must not forget that Europe is the land in which faith, reason and humanism have found that perfect synthesis, where the welfare state was born, a society was formed that puts the defence of life and the family at the centre and takes care of the most vulnerable.”

“We have the task of awakening this Europe from the slumber into which it has fallen and defending it from relativism and creeping Islamisation,” she added.

Meloni also said she was comfortable with herself, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the de facto leader of France’s National Rally, Marine Le Pen, being seen by many as the leading ladies in Europe.

“We are three centre-right women, albeit from three different political families,” adding that she now wanted to work together with these “families” to create her alternative majority.

“We want to do exactly what we did in Italy a year and a half ago, and export this model for the leadership of the future Europe.”



Meloni is leading the list of her party in the European Parliament elections, which conclude on June 9.