In Italy, the far right will rule for the first time since the Second World War. How will relations with the EU change? – Diary of N

“During the entire campaign, they said that we are feared,” Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the ultra-right party Brothers of Italy, said at a rally before the elections. “Are you afraid of me?” she asked her supporters. They are not afraid. But Europe does. Meloni, who has a problem with Islam, LGBT people and abortions, and who might even today claim that the European Union has nothing to worry about in sovereign countries, if it did not need money to recover from the consequences of the pandemic, will most likely become the prime minister of the third strongest of the European economy: Italy. According to exit polls, the voters in Sunday’s elections gave her coalition, in which she joined the far-right League of Matteo Salvini and the Forza Italia of Putin’s friend Silvio Berlusconi, 41 to 45 percent of the vote, and thus a majority in both the House and the Senate. Just a week ago, she said in a TV interview that “sovereignty belongs to the people” and that “some corrections need to be made” in the European Union. What exactly her government will mean for Europe is yet to be seen. This article is exclusive content for Denník N subscribers. Are you a subscriber? Log in