ROME (AFP) – Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni meets European Union chiefs in Brussels for the first time since her election, with the energy crisis expected to dominate the agenda.
Nationalist Meloni has vowed to put Italy’s interests first, and the trip will be closely watched amid fears of turbulent relations ahead between Meloni’s populist government in Rome and the bloc’s powerhouses.
“The voice of Italy in Europe will be strong: we are ready to confront the big questions, starting with the energy crisis, working together for a solution to help families and businesses to halt speculation,” Meloni tweeted yesterday.
Meloni’s tone towards Europe has been more conciliatory in recent months despite once calling for Italy to scrap the euro, but in a book to be published today she slams “a Europe that is invasive in small things and absent in big matters”.
In her first international trip since taking office, Meloni meets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council Chief Charles Michel and European Parliament speaker Roberta Metsola.
It will be the first face-to-face encounter since von der Leyen angered Italy’s right-wing parties ahead of the September general election by warning of consequences should the country veer away from democratic principles.
But Meloni, the first woman to become Italian Prime Minister and head of Italy’s most far-right government since World War II, will arrive in Brussels on a diplomatic rather than war footing, political analyst Lorenzo Codogno told AFP.
“Meloni is pragmatic and wants to be perceived as a moderate and mainstream leader,” he said.
The leader of the eurozone’s third-largest economy is expected to stress the urgency of European measures to reduce sky-high energy prices, a battle begun by her predecessor Mario Draghi.
“The real focus will be on energy… the most urgent issue with winter around the corner,” Codogno said, adding Meloni will be determined “to show continuity with the Draghi government”.
Draghi joined other countries in calling for bloc-wide solutions to the energy crunch aggravated by the war in Ukraine, rather than Germany’s controversial go-it-alone approach.
Meloni, too, has insisted the continent’s worst energy crisis in decades should be dealt with “at an EU level”.
The trip “will have no immediate practical consequences”, Italy’s Messaggero daily said, but it will help Meloni gauge “what the prospects are” for help from the bloc on the country’s most pressing issues.
For their part, EU chiefs hope to use the meeting to “understand better what Meloni intends to do”, said Director of the Jacques Delors Institute Sebastien Maillard.
