Marine Le Pen reacts during the debate prior to the no-confidence votes on Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government (Photo: Alain Jocard/ AFP)
And while many extreme-right politicians in Europe have wavered in their support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, Meloni has offered fulsome backing for Kyiv – even convincing her fellow rightwinger, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, to agree to a €50bn aid package to the war-torn country.
Her foreign credentials were also boosted last week when Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was released by the Iranian authorities after a month in jail in Tehran. Telling Sala’s mother that her daughter was free “was the most emotional moment of the past two years,” Meloni said.
Last month, Politico, named Meloni as the most powerful person in Europe, saying she “has gone from being dismissed as an ultranationalist kook to… establishing herself as a figure with whom Brussels, and now Washington, can do business”.
Meloni is already close with Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and Trump associate who is currently tormenting Europe’s mainstream politicians through his X platform. Musk described Meloni as “someone who is even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside” at an awards ceremony in New York last year – and later had to deny a romantic relationship with her.
These ties might suggest Meloni is perfectly placed as a ‘Trump whisperer’ for Europe – including Britain – as established politicians struggle to liaise with the erratic and thin-skinned former property tycoon.
Meloni’s supporters certainly see her as an intermediary who could find common ground between Brussels and Washington. “Meloni has demonstrated her ability to lead the country with determination and vision, earning respect not only in Italy but also internationally,” Susanna Ceccardi, an MEP with the Lega party, one of Meloni’s coalition partners, told The i Paper.
Ceccardi says that it was Meloni’s ability to work with both Trump and the outgoing Biden Administration that helped secure Cecilia Sala’s release. “This approach should become a model for Europe as well, where the debate between those advocating resistance and those supporting collaboration with Trump is more heated than ever on crucial geopolitical and economic issues for our future,” she says.
However, seasoned hands in Brussels say Meloni is unlikely to emerge as Europe’s voice in Washington. They say she is simply benefitting from a rare European power vacuum, as French President Emmanuel Macron is weakened at home and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to lose next month’s elections. In the EU, at least, the power players in Paris and Berlin still set the pace.
“Yes, she’s a player. She’s gained more influence, but her interests are very domestic and they’re very defensive. They’re all about Italy,” says Mujtaba Rahman, the Europe Managing Director of the Eurasia Group. “I don’t think Meloni really has a vision about Europe and what direction the EU should go in, but she has a set of interests around the domestic economy, around migration that are all very much about Italy and Italy’s place in Europe.”
For all her ability to tack to the mainstream in Brussels, her domestic policies unsettle most other European countries. She has used the courts to try to silence critics, launching defamation suits against journalists, teachers and even Placebo’s rockstar frontman Brian Molko, who called her a “fascist” during a concert in 2023. She has also attacked Italian judges who have ruled against her government’s policies, which the Council of Europe warns “puts their independence at risk”.
She has attacked the LGBTQ+ community and forbidden mayors from issuing birth certificates to children born to lesbian couples who used artificial insemination. And even last week, she was pushing conspiracy theories about American financier and philanthropist George Soros controlling politics in Europe – while exculpating her friend Musk’s meddling. “None of this reflects the EU’s core values,” says an EU official. “We are not going to entrust the EU’s interests with someone like this.”
Nor should Meloni assume she will align with the incoming president. Her support for Ukraine may jar with Trump’s seeming indifference to Kyiv. She could also fall foul of Trump’s gripes about European defence spending: Rome fails to meet the Nato commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence.
When it comes to trade, Italy – along with the rest of Europe – could still feel the impact of US tariffs that Trump threatens to impose on exports.
If she fails to head these off for the rest of the EU, her political credit would plummet, says Arturo Varvelli, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations office in Rome. “Meloni could leverage her rapport with Musk and Trump to secure favourable bilateral deals, such as reducing tariffs on Italian exports,” he says. “However, there is a risk that she might lean too heavily on these personal relationships, adopting a self-serving transactional approach rather than pushing for a united European front.”
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Publish date : 2025-01-10 22:02:00
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