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How Italy’s Five Star Movement wants to change EU politics

Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S) wants to team up with like-minded populist parties and form a new grouping within the European Parliament to take power from the traditional left and right, its leader said Sunday.

Published: 29 April 2019 09:37 CEST

How Italy's Five Star Movement wants to change EU politics

Five Star leader and Italian deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio speaking during the European election campaign in Waraw, Poland. Photo: Janek SKARZYNSKI/AFP

“I don't think that the traditional parties have the potential to attain an absolute majority in the European Parliament,” M5S chief Luigi di Maio said.

Speaking at an event in Warsaw with Poland's populist Kukiz'15 movement and Croatia's Zivi Zid (Human Shield) party, Di Maio said the traditional differentiation between politics of the “left” and “right” was “outdated”.

READ ALSO: Luigi Di Maio, the face of Italian populism

“I prefer to distinguish between good and bad ideas,” said Di Maio, who is also Italy's deputy prime minister.

He said his party was open to collaboration with any political movement “that comes up with good proposals.”

Photo: Janek SKARZYNSKI/AFP

Di Maio's Polish host, the punk-rocker-turned-politician Pawel Kukiz, said his party's slogan for the EU elections would be “Poland in Europe, Europe for Poland” and that the focus of his campaign would be the fight against the “ossified elites”.

“We cannot accept that Europe is in the hands of the European Commission, which in reality serves the interests of two states, a sort of marriage between (French President Emmanuel) Macron and (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel,” he said.

Analysts have said that Italy's populist government — comprised of Di Maio's M5S and the far-right League — is on its last legs, with the two parties split over various issues since taking power last June.

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Italian PM Meloni says will 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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