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Elon Musk to attend Italian PM’s right-wing gathering

Billionaire Elon Musk is set to take part in a political festival organised by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy this weekend in Rome, a party spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.

Published: 13 December 2023 17:14 CET
Elon Musk
Billionaire Elon Musk on the stage of The New York Times Dealbook Summit in New York in November 2023. Photo by Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images via AFP

Musk, who owns social media platform X (formerly Twitter), in September backed Meloni’s government in a row over Germany’s funding of charities that rescue shipwrecked migrants in the Mediterranean.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who recently struck a deal with Meloni to establish two centres for migrants rescued by the Italian coastguard in his country, is also expected at the four-day Atreju festival in Rome, which opens on Thursday.

However, the spokesman for Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was unable to confirm speculation that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would also attend. Downing Street declined to comment.

READ ALSO: Musk says cage fight with Zuckerberg will be at ‘epic location’ in Italy

Meloni helped found the Atreju festival in 1998, when she was part of a far-right youth organisation. The gathering has since become an annual event for the political right, although it has also drawn centre-left politicians.

Former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon attended in 2018, as he sought to create a pan-European right-wing movement, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made an appearance the following year.

Back then, Meloni’s party, which she helped found in 2012, was still a marginal force in Italian politics.

In September 2022 she stunned Italy’s allies by winning the general elections, in large part on a promise to end mass migration into the country.

READ ALSO: How has Italy’s ‘anti-immigrant’ government changed the rules for foreigners?

She took office in October 2022 as the first woman to lead Italy, at the helm of a coalition including Matteo Salvini of the far-right League and former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing Forza Italia party.

The guests this weekend also include Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, according to the official programme.

Spain’s Socialist party on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Abascal over comments suggesting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez would meet a dictator’s end and be strung up “by his feet”.

Meloni is due to make a speech on Sunday at the festival, which was named after a character in fantasy novel and later film series “The Neverending Story”.

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EU

Italy’s Meloni hopes EU ‘understands message’ from voters

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Saturday she hoped the European Union would understand the "message" sent by voters in last weekend's elections, after far-right parties such as hers made gains.

Published: 15 June 2024 17:33 CEST
Italy's Meloni hopes EU 'understands message' from voters

Meloni, head of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, which performed particularly well in the vote, urged the EU to “understand the message that has come from European citizens”.

“Because if we want to draw lessons from the vote that everything was fine, I fear it would be a slightly distorted reading,” she told a press conference at the end of a G7 summit in Puglia.

“European citizens are calling for pragmatism, they are calling for an approach that is much less ideological on several major issues,” she said.

Meloni’s right-wing government coalition has vehemently opposed the European Green Deal and wants a harder stance on migration.

“Citizens vote for a reason. It seems to me that a message has arrived, and it has arrived clearly,” she said.

EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Monday to negotiate the top jobs, including whether European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will get a second term.

Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party strengthened its grip with the vote, but her reconfirmation is not yet in the bag.

The 65-year-old conservative was in Puglia for the G7 and likely used the summit to put her case to the leaders of France, Germany and Italy.

But Meloni refused to be drawn on whom she is backing.

“We will have a meeting on Monday, we’ll see,” she told journalists.

“We will also see what the evaluations will be on the other top roles,” she said.

Italian political watchers say Meloni is expected to back von der Leyen, but is unlikely to confirm that openly until Rome locks in a deal on commissioner jobs.

“What interests me is that… Italy is recognised for the role it deserves,” she said.

“I will then make my assessments.”

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani indicated that it was unlikely any decision would be made before the French elections on June 30 and July 7.

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