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EUROPEAN UNION

Post-Brexit, less than a third of Italians want to leave EU

Ten days on from the shock results of the UK referendum on whether or not to remain in the EU, and euro-scepticism in Italy seems to be on the wane.

Published: 4 July 2016 10:47 CEST
Post-Brexit, less than a third of Italians want to leave EU
After the UK vote, the majority of Italians want to stay in the EU. Photo: David Baxendale/Flickr

Just 28 percent of all Italians would now vote to leave the EU, according to a survey by UK pollsters Ipsos, carried out on behalf of Corriere della Sera in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote.

Fourty-eight percent of the 1,000 people surveyed said they would definitely vote to remain in the event of an EU referendum in Italy, while 26 percent reported that they were either undecided or wouldn't vote.

The results provide a stark contrast to a separate Ipsos poll carried out earlier this year, in which almost half of all Italians said they wanted to leave the EU.

In the earlier poll, 58 percent of people also said they were in favour of Italy holding a referendum on its EU membership, but this figure fell to 44 percent following Britain's shock decision.

The results point to a softening of the euroskeptic attitudes which were on the rise in Italy in the build up to the referendum – perhaps brought on by the political and economic chaos the British vote triggered.

The Brexit vote has sent global financial markets into meltdown, caused the UK Prime Minister David Cameron to resign and exposed huge fractures in the British political landscape, which show no signs of being resolved anytime soon.

Yet in spite of the chaos in the UK, more than three quarters of all respondents were of the opinion the Brexit will not be felt too harshly in Italy.

An impressive 49 percent of all respondents said they thought the effects of the vote would be “negative but not dramatic”, while 39 percent of people felt “little or nothing” would change.

However, even though most people thought the effects would be minimal, only six percent of all respondents thought things would change for the better following a British exit.

Among the optimists are Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has spoken of hopes for the future, calling Brexit “a great opportunity” for the EU.

Speaking to reporters last week, Renzi said it could bring about “more growth and more investment, less austerity and less bureaucracy – things we have been proposing for the past two years”. 

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EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

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

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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