Giorgia Meloni, who will likely take power in Italy after Sunday’s election, has caused much concern in Europe and the United States because of her party’s historic ties to neo-fascism and her praise of Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Those fears are overblown, but no one should underestimate the populist leader’s desire for significant political and economic change.
Meloni co-founded the Brothers of Italy in 2012 as a breakaway from the country’s main center-right party, People of Freedom. The Brothers was nationalist from its inception, taking its name from a line in the Italian national anthem. It uses colors and symbols associated with the post-war Italian Social Movement, a party founded by supporters of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. It has never advocated fascism, but its pedigree has nevertheless always raised concerns.
But Italy is not Hungary. It has a robustly free media and has been a Western democracy for nearly 80 years. Moreover, Meloni’s party has never embarked on a crusade against liberal democracy the way Mussolini or even Orban has. The Brothers party doesn’t want to end democracy; it wants to respect Italy’s national traditions and restore the country’s economic freedoms.
Those twin concerns mark Meloni’s rise and explain her appeal. She came to prominence when she proclaimed in 2019 that “I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian”. This social conservatism isn’t rooted in the past; rather, it is rooted in a sense that Italy’s past is worthy of respect and can form the foundation for its future.
The economic issues are also crucial to explaining her rise. Italy is a founding member of the euro zone, but its economy has largely stagnated after adopting the euro in 2002. Since then, Italy’s economy has never grown by more than 2 percent annually, except for last year’s post-pandemic bounce. It also never recovered from the 2008 financial crash; unemployment has never dropped below 8 percent since then, and its real GDP per capita remains lower than it was in 2007.
This has produced political upheaval, of which Meloni and her party are the current beneficiaries. Italy’s 2006 election featured two traditional coalitions, center-left and center-right, which received almost all of the votes. Pro-European traditional parties anchored each coalition, with no serious populist opposition. By 2013, an anti-establishment populist party, the 5 Star Movement (M5S), received more than 25 percent. Five years later, M5S won nearly a third of the vote and 22 percent went to the Brothers and the League, which had taken a populist, anti-immigrant turn.
That majority reasserted itself Sunday, with the Brothers taking the lead. Meloni’s party received 26 percent of the vote, and M5S and the League together pulled in 24 percent. A further 5 percent voted for a variety of populist and sovereigntist parties, including one that wants Italy to leave the European Union.
Clearly, staying the course is not on Italians’ agenda. Thus, Meloni has every incentive to depart from Italy’s recent past.
Doing so won’t be easy. She will be hamstrung by Italy’s massive debt, which causes it to rely on support from the European Union and European Central Bank. Her social conservatism could also be opposed by the European Parliament. France’s prime minister reacted to Meloni’s win by saying France would “be attentive” to Italy’s abortion laws to protect women’s access to the procedure. The E.U.’s recent move to withhold financial aid to Hungary — which Meloni’s party opposed — shows Brussels is not afraid to put its money where its values are.
Meloni knows she needs to move carefully. She took pains during the campaign to say Italy will be fiscally responsible under her leadership. She supports sanctions against Russia and expresses broad support for the Western alliance. No one should expect her to make waves in these areas once she takes power.
Nevertheless, Meloni cannot operate as a normal European leader. Italians wants change and, in recent years, they have moved to whichever party credibly promises to deliver. So to stay in power, she must show she can push the E.U. to give Italy more slack to execute what the nation wants.
That conflict will likely emerge on three fronts: migration, E.U. financial support and capping energy prices. Regarding the first, Italy is a front-line nation when it comes to migration from Africa and the Middle East. Meloni has previously called for a naval blockade to prevent mass immigration. Restricting immigration is popular in Italy, and she will likely be willing to stand up to the E.U. if it disapproves of her efforts to limit it.
Second, the E.U.’s financial support to Italy comes primarily from its coronavirus recovery program, NextGenerationEU. That support is substantial but comes with many strings attached. Meloni has argued for renegotiating with the E.U. to give her more flexibility in using the funds. Expect her first budget, due later this year, to lay down that challenge.
Finally, Meloni has stated that the E.U. needs to cap energy prices and that Italy will act if the E.U. does not. Such a cap could be extremely expensive, as it would require substantial government transfers to energy companies to keep them solvent. Germany is said to be looking at some form of energy price cap, which could produce room for agreement. But Meloni knows standing up to Brussels and Berlin to protect Italians’ energy bills would be extremely popular if she had to.
Many in the European establishment believe they can tame Meloni as they did her predecessors. But Italy’s first female prime minister is not likely to go along meekly. Given Italians’ strong desire for change, she is likely to be a stronger change agent than many think.
Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.