The Italian Matteo Salvinileader of the far-right party League and government partner of the also far-right Giorgia Meloni, announced this Monday his integration into the new group Patriots for Europe, the initiative of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.
“Today, after much work, the great group of ‘Patriots’ is born in Brussels with the League, which will be decisive in changing the future of this Europe,” wrote Salvini on his social networks after commenting on the result of the second round of the French elections, in which his ally in Europe, Marine Le Pen, finished third despite starting as the favourite.
Alongside a video of the riots this morning, Salvini says that “this is the first night after the elections in France, with the heterogeneous group ‘all against Le Pen’ built by Macron winning the elections, but not having the numbers to govern.”
Salvini had already implicitly anticipated that both the League and the far-right National Regrouping, Le Pen, had intended to join Orbán’s group, as when last Friday he welcomed the announcement by the Spanish party Vox that it was leaving Meloni’s Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group.
“The adhesion of the Spanish to Vox is a very important signal. The front for change in Europe is growing, determined to say No to Von der Leyen and the socialists“s,” said the vice president of the Italian government.
Salvini has long called for the unity of far-right forces in Europe, where the League is part of Identity and Democracy (ID), the coalition led by Le Pen.
Meloni, who supported the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, in several electoral events, still has not been pronouncedbut on Sunday its Minister for European Affairs, Raffaelle Fitto, tried to downplay this departure by saying that “it does not change things.”
He argued that Italy has “another game to play” and that is to be a protagonist in the formation of the new leadership of the European Union after the June elections, asserting its “strategic weight” as a founding country and third power of the Eurozone.
Fitto did not confirm whether Brothers from Italy will support a second term for the President of the European Commission, German Popular Party candidate Ursula von der Leyen: “We have not yet decided because we want to hear what she says and her programme. We do not vote based on likes or dislikes.”
Since October 2022, the Italian government has been formed by a coalition of three parties from three different European families: Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, which belongs to the ECR; Salvini’s League, of Identity and Democracy, and Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia of the European People’s Party (EPP).
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