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In her first speech to Italian MPs, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s new prime minister, unveiled her political priorities for the next five years, a month after her post-fascist Brothers of Italy party’s historic victory in legislative elections. This speech was followed by a vote of confidence for which Meloni reached an absolute majority.
Giorgia Meloni reached the absolute majority on Tuesday, October 25 in the Italian Parliament with 235 votes in favor (out of a total of 400). A victory due to her party, the Brothers of Italy, and their coalition partners, Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, in addition to other small formations.
The opposition received 154 votes, those of the Democratic Party (PD), the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the centrists Azione and Italia Viva, among others, while five deputies abstained. The process of his investiture, a formalism to have enough numbers, will end on Wednesday, October 26 in the Senate.
Il Governo gets the #trust there Camera. Ringrazio tutte le force politiche per aver ascoltato le linee programmatiche che l’Esecutivo intends to act per risollevare l’Italia. Domani sarò in Senato for another important tassello. La rotta è tracciata: andiamo avanti.
— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) October 25, 2022
“The Government obtains the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies. I thank all the political forces for listening to the lines of the program that the Executive intends to launch to promote Italy. Tomorrow I will be in the Senate for another important step. The route is drawn: we move forward,” the prime minister tweeted.
Relationship with NATO and the European Union
The first female head of government in the history of Italy, who took office on Sunday, October 23, delivered her general policy speech during this first meeting with the deputies.
Giorgia Meloni strongly reaffirmed Italy’s membership of the European Union, saying that “Italy will respect the rules” of the EU, although Rome also wants to “help change those that do not work”.
The EU is “a common house to face the challenges that member states can hardly face alone,” he said, judging that Europe had not done enough in this area in the past. Meloni also promised that Italy would remain “a reliable NATO partner in support of Ukraine, which opposes Russian aggression.”
“Giving in to Putin’s energy blackmail would not solve the problem, but would make it worse, opening the way to new claims and blackmail and to future rises even greater than those we have experienced in recent months,” he announced.
The far-right leader tried to allay concerns about her party’s historic victory in September. She assured that the Italian approach is not to “stop and sabotage European integration”, but to make the EU machinery work better.
“Stop illegal departures”
Giorgia Meloni also tried to reassure citizens about her party’s line, denying any “sympathy” or “closeness to anti-democratic regimes.” She “she insisted that she was not in favor of any regime, including fascism, and that in her youth she was an admirer of Mussolini.
As for immigration, the new prime minister said on Tuesday that her government intended to “stop illegal departures” from Africa to the Peninsula and “break the trafficking of human beings” in the Mediterranean.
Inflation Support Measures
With inflation out of control, Giorgia Meloni promised as a “priority” to “reinforce support measures for households and businesses, both for energy bills and for fuel.” “A financial commitment that will exhaust much of the available resources,” she acknowledged.
Inflation rose 8.9% year-on-year in September, and Italy has been hit particularly hard by the energy crisis due to its reliance on Russian gas imports. Paradoxically, while his party had been frontally opposed to the government of Mario Draghi, his program is in line with that of the former head of the European Central Bank (ECB), at least in the economic field.
With EFE and AFP
