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Far-right Meloni sworn in as Italy’s first woman PM

Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as Italian prime minister on Saturday, to become the first woman to head a government in Italy.

Published: 22 October 2022 13:21 CEST
Updated: 22 October 2022 16:30 CEST
Far-right Meloni sworn in as Italy's first woman PM
Italy's new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni leaves the Quirinal Palace after the swearing-in ceremony of the new Italian Government in Rome on 22nd October, 2022. Photo by GIUSEPPE LAMI / ANSA / AFP

Meloni took the oath before President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, once home to popes and kings of Italy.

Her post-fascist Brothers of Italy party — Eurosceptic and anti-immigration — won the 25th September legislative polls but needed outside support to form a government.

Meloni’s appointment is an historic event for the eurozone’s third largest economy and for Brothers of Italy, which has never been in government.

It won 26 percent of the vote last month, compared to eight and nine percent respectively for her allies Forza Italia and the far-right League.

Meloni’s list of 24 ministers, including six women, revealed a desire to reassure Italy’s partners. She named Giancarlo Giorgetti as economy minister, who served under the previous government of Mario Draghi.

READ ALSO: What will the right-wing election victory mean for abortion rights in Italy?

Giorgetti, a former minister of economic development, is considered one of the more moderate, pro-Europe members of Matteo Salvini’s League.

Meloni also named ex-European Parliament president Antonio Tajani, of Forza Italia, as foreign minister and deputy prime minister.

Salvini will serve as deputy prime minister and minister of infrastructure and transport. That appointment is likely to disappoint Salvini, who wanted Meloni to give him the role of interior minister again after he previously held the post between 2018 and 2019. The position went instead to a technocrat, Rome prefect Matteo Piantedosi.

A formal ceremony for the handover of power from Draghi to Meloni will take place on Sunday before the premier leads the first cabinet meeting.

Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella (4th-R) and new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (5th-R) pose with members of the new cabinet during the swearing-in ceremony of the new Italian Government at the Quirinal Palace in Rome on 22nd October, 2022.
Photo by FABIO FRUSTACI / ANSA / AFP

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Meloni on her appointment.

“I count on and look forward to constructive cooperation with the new government on the challenges we face together,” she tweeted on Saturday, while European Parliament speaker Roberta Metsola tweeted in Italian that “Europe needs Italy”.

US President Joe Biden congratulated Meloni and called Italy a “vital NATO ally and close partner.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that he looked “forward to continued fruitful cooperation to ensure peace and prosperity in Ukraine, Italy and the world”.
   

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also sent his congratulations on Twitter. “Big day for the European Right!” he wrote.

Unity concerns

The consultations to cobble together a government had been overshadowed by disagreements with her two would-be coalition partners over Meloni’s ardent support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion, whereas the leaders of Forza Italia and the League are both considered close to Moscow.

A recording was leaked in which Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — who heads Forza Italia — talks about his warm ties with Moscow and appeared to blame the war in Ukraine on Zelensky. Berlusconi says the comments were taken out of context.

Salvini is a long-time fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has criticised Western sanctions on Russia. Despite her Eurosceptic stance, Meloni has been firm about her support for Ukraine, in line with the rest of the European Union and the United States.

But the tensions add to concerns that Meloni’s coalition, held together by the need for a parliamentary majority, will struggle to maintain unity.

Challenges ahead

Meloni’s coalition wants to renegotiate Italy’s portion of the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund. It argues the almost 200 billion euros ($197 billion) it expects to receive should take into account the current energy crisis, exacerbated by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which has hit supplies of Russian gas to Europe.

But the funds are tied to a series of reforms only just begun by Draghi’s government, and analysts say Meloni has limited room for manoeuvre.

Meloni had campaigned on a platform of “God, country and family”, sparking fears of a regression on rights in the Catholic-majority country.

 

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POLITICS

‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

Media freedom in Italy has come increasingly under pressure since Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government took office, a group of European NGOs warned on Friday following an urgent fact-finding summit.

Published: 17 May 2024 17:40 CEST
‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

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