By population and economy, Italy is the third largest country in the EU and holds 76 seats in the European Parliament (EP). Italians will go to the polls on the weekend of June 8th and 9th to decide who will sit in those EP seats. Many will cast their vote for the Brothers of Italy, the party of Italian PM Giorgio Meloni. Despite the fact that she will not go to Brussels, Meloni’s popularity has shot her to the top of her party as the first-listed candidate. . For some, the Italian EP elections are a referendum on Meloni and one that will go in her favour. Below, we explore the dynamics shaping Meloni’s popularity at home and how Italian domestic politics could get exported to Brussels.
Italy’s political and social dynamics since 2019
Press freedom takes a tumble
Since the hard-right Brothers of Italy (FdI) came to power, press freedom and freedom of expression more broadly have suffered. Academics and public intellectuals who have criticised Meloni’s government and its allies have been taken to court and risk prison sentences due to the country’s strict defamation laws. Meloni herself has taken a critic— an 81 year-old historian— to court on the grounds of aggravated defamation. Most recently, the philosopher Donatella Di Cesar, after describing the words of the agriculture minister—Meloni’s brother-in-law—as having a neo-Nazi tone, has also found herself accused of defamation.
Journalists at the public broadcaster, Rai, have gone on a series of strikes in recent weeks due to what they view as “suffocating control” and inappropriate editorial interference from Meloni’s government. The ruling party has been accused of censoring content that does not match its right-wing ideology. Earlier this month, the broadcaster accused the government of cancelling an anti-fascism monologue which was planned to be read on one of Rai’s talk shows. Additionally, a report from the organisation Reporters Without Borders has highlighted that Meloni wants to sell off a state-controlled news agency to an MP in her own party. This is seen as a major threat to press independence.
All of this paints a picture of a PM and ruling party aiming to tighten their grip on power, even at the cost of basic freedoms. It also highlights a tension at the heart of Meloni’s politics. She has tried to style herself as broadly aligned with the mainstream at the European level by supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s aggression, yet her domestic politics appear to go against basic democratic principles. So far, support for her has not suffered, with polls indicating FdI support is slightly higher now than it was at the last general election in Autumn 2022.
Economic growth
Italy was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, being the first EU country to have a major outbreak. The economy took a significant hit. Even before the pandemic, Italy faced gloomy growth forecasts and bad debt rankings. However, the economic recovery in the post-covid era has been strong. In the last quarter of 2023, the Italian economy grew by 0.6 percent, and since its pre-COVID 2019 size, the economy has grown by 3.8 percent. Additionally, the Italian stock market, FTSE MIB, rose by 28 percent in 2023. In the period since 2019, the Italian economy grew five times as much as the German economy and twice as much as the French economy.
Experts say the growth is not due to fiscal policies instituted by the current government. Indeed, Meloni’s campaign pledge of €100 bonuses for working families highlights, for many, her government’s lack of true solutions for the economic troubles of contemporary Italy, such as high rates of precarious and low-paid work. One of the driving factors in the growing economy is the country taking on more debt. Italy’s debt is expected to exceed 140 percent of GDP in 2024. Other factors, such as government subsidies for house renovation costs and subsidies and loans from the EU, also have factored into Italy’s economic growth in the last years. Meloni and her governing party have gotten some credit for the economic situation, even the previous opposition leader, Enrico Lette, said that Meloni was “better than we expected” in terms of her economic policy.
However, with the rise of right-wing parties across Europe, austerity policies are likely to return to Brussels and the subsidies—such as the post-pandemic recovery funds of which Italy was the main recipient—will dry up. This could hurt Meloni in the long run, as the Italian economy suffers under future EU austerity measures, but for the upcoming EP election the country’s economic position works in her favour.
Italy’s election results since 2019
2019 EP elections
In the last EP elections, the largest share of Italian voters supported a far right party. However, it was not Meloni’s now-powerful Brothers of Italy (FdI), rather it was the right-wing populist, ID affiliated Lega, which is the party behind Matteo Salvini. Lega gained support from more than a third of voters, finishing with 34.3 percent. FdI, on the other hand, finished with just 6.4 percent.
The S&D affiliated centre-left Democratic Party (PD) received 22.7 percent. The non-affiliated, broadly progressive and anti-establishment party, Five Star Movement finished with 17 percent. Forza Italia, the right-wing party of Silvio Berlusconi, came in fourth with 8.7 percent support. Finally, the regionalist Christian-democratic South Tyrolean People’s Party won one seat in the EP, after receiving only 0.5 percent of the vote.
2022 general election
Italy last held a general election in September 2022. This election led to the far-right Brothers of Italy taking power, with Georgia Meloni becoming the first woman to be Prime Minister of Italy. Brothers of Italy (FdI) received 26 percent of the vote. They were followed by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) with 19 percent and the Five Star Movement (M5S) with slightly over 15 percent. These three parties are all likely to get similar results in the upcoming EP election.
Below them, with slightly under nine percent support, was the right-wing populist Lega party. The centre-right Forza Italia (FI) received just over eight percent of the popular vote and the centrist, liberal Action-Italia Viva (A-IV) just under eight percent. The Greens and Left Alliance (AVS), a left-wing political alliance between the Italian Left and the Green Europe parties won 3.6 percent. The smallest party to win seats in the national parliament was the centre to centre-right Us Moderates Party (NM).
What to expect
Over the past six months, voting intention polls in Italy have remained remarkably steady. Most recent polls show FdI with a substantial lead, sitting around 27 percent support. The centre-left PD is at 21 percent and the M5S sits at 16 percent. Both the far-right Lega and the rightwing FI are at nine percent. Below that, at four percent, are the liberal RE affiliated United States of Europe, the Green and Left Alliance (AVS), and the centrist Action Party (Az). Slightly below those parties, at three percent, is the liberal party led by former Italian PM Matteo Renzi. Finally, two unaffiliated parties sit at one percent: Us Moderates and the self-explanatory, yet poorly named, Italexit.
Without any major changes in the next week, Italy looks set to contribute substantially to the growing hard-right bloc in the EP. Huge support for the far-right isn’t new to Italy but the EP group which will benefit the most from it has changed, thanks to the popularity of Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni is now a powerful player on the EU level and this poses the possibility that EU politics may be profoundly influenced by Italian dynamics. In April, Von der Leyen hinted at the possibility that she could work with the ECR group under certain conditions. This comes after von der Leyen and the EPP group have somewhat openly pursued Meloni during the past year. Although such an alliance is not likely in the near future, it opens the door to a future EP where traditional alliances and the grand coalition are replaced with an alliance of right-wing forces that breaks through the cordon sanitaire that has, thus far, kept the ID and ECR groups, and their figures such as Meloni and Le Pen, apart from the mainstream.
