Italy : Giorgia Meloni, the tricolor flame and the Mediterranean

The first woman to become prime minister in Italy is right-wing. Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian Prime Minister and her ally during the campaign that elected her, described her as: “Obstinate, overbearing, arrogant, offensive. You can’t be in agreement with her”. The Italian politician allowed his words written on a piece of paper to be filmed after the results of the 2022 elections, when Meloni (the most voted) and Salvini shared the posts to form a new government, leaving Berlusconi (already of the old guard) out. Meloni paid back his ally Berlusconi, leader of Forza Italia, in a complimentary way in his obituary. Through his social network Instagram, Meloni described him as: “Combatant, courageous, determined” and continued: “Thank you, Silvio. We won’t forget you”. The Prime Minister had been Youth Minister during Berlusconi’s government.

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Defending the famous slogan “God, Country and Family”, Meloni won support for his incisive speeches and led his young party, Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) or Brothers of Italy, to the highest office in the Italian executive. After years in opposition to Mario Draghi (former Prime Minister), with 26% of the vote, Meloni led his party from an insignificant acronym in Italian politics in 2012 to the head of government in 2022.
The origins of the Fratelli d’Italia are somewhat controversial. The party has its roots in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), founded in 1946 by members of Mussolini’s fascist regime and dissolved in 1995. From the MSI, which in the 1990s became the National Alliance, the FdI kept the tricolor flame (green, white and red, like the colors of the Italian flag), a symbol sometimes associated with fascism.

In addition, the participation of people linked to Italy’s fascist past in Meloni’s government caused distrust among the opposition. An example of this was the appointment of Ignazio La Russa to the presidency of the Senate, which was not supported by Berlusconi and his party, Forza Italia, but passed with opposition votes. Ignazio La Russa is the son of a secretary of Mussolini’s fascist party.
After almost a year and a half in office (starting in October 2022), it can be said that Meloni has changed the tone of his rhetoric. This is because, of course, the rhetoric of an election campaign is different from that needed to govern, even in a coalition with a majority.

Italy has had 68 governments since the fall of fascism, which gives an average of almost one government a year. It is no coincidence that Italian politics has gone through many periods of instability. Although the volatility of parliamentary governments may be greater than that of presidential ones, this average reveals an unusual pace of government change, even compared to other parliamentary models, such as the German one. This model was chosen in order to avoid the concentration of power that could occur in a presidential system, for example. Meloni therefore has the challenge of staying in power for five years in order to achieve the reforms, or at least part of them, that he promised in his campaign.

The war in Ukraine and alignment with the West

Also elected for her criticism of the European Union and the imposition of policies on Italy, Giorgia Meloni expressed her full support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine during the campaign. The Italian Prime Minister is the leader of a pro-Western right wing that, in her words, “doesn’t want to destroy Europe or leave Europe”. But she wants “a different attitude on the international stage”, Meloni said during the campaign, facing accusations that her government would be a risk to Europe.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even the governments most sympathetic to Moscow have had to reposition themselves – the very least in terms of their public image. Russia’s aggression has brought to the surface fears that once seemed outdated. Putin has made the threat that Russia could invade other European countries more credible – at least in the eyes of some. The scourge of war is not, after all, only in Europe’s past. This circumstance has put governments like Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary in a tight spot, since its less liberal – or more authoritarian – nature seems to align it more with Moscow than with the European Union itself, of which it is a member.

In Italy, Matteo Salvini, Meloni’s ally and a member of the Lega Nord (Northern League, later renamed the League) party, was embarrassed when photos surfaced in 2014 of him wearing a T-shirt with Putin’s picture on it. More recently, Salvini, the current transport minister and deputy prime minister, even criticized Macron, the French president, accusing him of putting Europe in danger by his harsh words against Putin.

Meloni then found himself in the position of calming Kiev down and stating that Italy fully supports the Ukrainian resistance to the invasion. An example of this was the bilateral security agreement signed between the two countries. In February, when the war in Ukraine turned two years old, Meloni visited the country. During the visit, the Prime Minister said that supporting Ukraine necessarily means giving military support “because confusing the much-publicized word ‘peace’ with ‘surrender’, as some do, is a hypocritical approach that we will never share,” reports CNN.

Moral Agendas

A Catholic, Meloni openly opposes abortion, the regulation of homosexual marriage, gender ideology and surrogacy or the adoption of children by same-sex couples. “A child deserves the best: to have a father and a mother,” Meloni said.

During her government, the Italian Prime Minister even granted citizenship to British baby Indy Gregory and her parents after the British courts ordered the withdrawal of her life support. Indy was born with a rare congenital disease that compromised her mitochondria, her cellular structure that produces energy, so that she was unable to breathe without the help of a hospital ventilator.

Against her parents’ wishes, the hospital where she was admitted and the British courts decided that it was in the girl’s best interests to have her ventilator removed. In an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the situation, Meloni granted, in addition to Italian citizenship, the possibility of the Italian government paying for Indy’s transfer costs to the Bambino Gesú pediatric hospital in Rome, where she would receive free experimental treatment. The offer was denied by the UK courts.

In the same vein, the FdI has approved a bill that reintroduces the 2004 legislation, which, in addition to banning surrogacy on the Italian peninsula, makes it a crime when carried out abroad. According to G1, Italy has one of the toughest laws against surrogacy and restricts access to assisted reproduction for homosexual couples.

Possible limitation to the concession of Italian citizenship

The issue of migration is a hot topic for European voters. Debates revolve around the need for more manpower in the face of low birth rates, as well as the cultural compatibility of migratory waves. It’s not just about whether or not to welcome immigrants, but also which immigrants.

In this sense, a bill presented by Senator Roberto Menia, from Meloni’s party, could have an impact on the process of obtaining Italian citizenship – including for Brazilians.

According to the newspaper Gazeta do Povo, if approved, the proposal would mean that, in order to be recognized as an Italian citizen without having to live in the country, which can be done up to the third generation (great-grandchildren), it would be necessary to prove that the applicant speaks the Italian language.

The required level would be B1. According to the international standard for language proficiency, there are six levels of understanding, writing and speaking a language, from A1 to C2. B1 indicates an ability to converse and write about general subjects, for example.

This possible change in the law can be understood in the light of the desire to maintain Italian tradition and culture. This is why citizenship is prioritized for those who have some command of the language, an element considered essential to national identity.

In addition, the bill would impose a generational limit on applications for citizenship based on kinship. In other words, from the fourth generation onwards, the applicant must have lived in Italy for at least one year to ensure that they do in fact have links with the country. Currently, there is no limit to the number of generations that can be applied for if there is proof of Italian ancestry.

However, in an increasingly globalized world, many people – it is estimated that there are more than 30 million descendants of Italians in Brazil alone – seek Italian citizenship as a way to diversify their businesses, expand their travel possibilities, or even as a retirement housing alternative. In other words, the granting of citizenship does not necessarily have to do with the applicant’s permanent move to Italy.

In the words of Senator Roberto Menia, who proposed the law: “Citizenship is a serious matter, just like national belonging and Italianness. It means adhering to a series of unwritten principles that include the way you are, the values you believe in and the language you speak”. In other words, Italian ancestry would not be enough.

In another vein, Francesco Lollobrigida, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, went so far as to say: “We should support more births, not ethnic replacement”, referring to the low birth rates in contrast to the arrival of immigrants. The comment was heavily criticized as “racist” and “xenophobic”. In any case, it reveals a feeling that is not as uncommon as once thought, that nationality is also related to ethnicity. In other words, for some, being Italian means speaking Italian, having Italian values and culture, but also looking a certain way.

However, this simplistic categorization ignores the differences within Italy itself. Italian is derived from Fiorentino and became the country’s lingua franca after unification, but there are thousands of dialects present in Italy. An Italian from Sicily certainly recognizes himself culturally differently from an Italian born in Milan. Most of the population communicates in everyday life using dialects and it is not uncommon for people from different regions to be unable to understand each other due to the differences in dialects. In South Tyrol, for example, most people speak German.

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The position regarding illegal immigrants

Meloni was elected promising to fight illegal immigration and even spoke of a naval blockade of Libya during the campaign. “I will not allow Italy to become the refugee camp of Europe,” said Meloni after the arrival of 10,000 people on the beach of Lampedusa, in southern Italy, in 2023. But after more than a year in office, the Prime Minister admitted that she had hoped to do more.

“I expected more on immigration. We have worked hard, but the results are not what we had hoped for, because the issue is very complex. This issue deserves a second phase of efforts,” said the Italian PM. His electorate is certainly not satisfied with the figures that indicate an increase in the arrival of immigrants in the country between 2022 and 2023, totaling 132,867 immigrants who landed in Italy last year, reports the newspaper Diario de Noticias. UN figures indicate that the majority of the almost 261,000 migrants who crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa in 2023 entered Europe through Italy, points out Euronews.

In order to continue fighting illegal immigration, Meloni is betting on investment on the African continent and wants to count on the support of the G7 and the European Union. The strategy may seem interesting, but it is a long-term one, which will not necessarily satisfy the electorate who want solutions to the current migratory waves.

The Mattei Plan, presented by Meloni at the G7 meeting in Rome, aims to control migratory flows from Africa to Europe by improving living conditions on the African continent. The idea is simple: once there are socio-economic improvements in Africa, people would be discouraged from leaving their continent in search of better living conditions in Europe. Italy thus wants to position itself as a bridge between the two continents, favoring cooperation, rather than being seen as a mere gateway for illegal immigration and trafficking.

Italy’s proposal gives it prominence on the European stage, which certainly favors Meloni’s position internally, by repositioning Italy on the international stage. However, the Mattei Plan received criticism from the African Union, which said it would have liked to have been consulted about the plan beforehand.

According to Deutsche Welle, “The Mattei Plan can count on 5.5 billion euros in credits, donations and guarantees,” said Giorgia Meloni. However, even if successful, the plan will not solve the problem of today’s deadly migratory routes. As the Prime Minister said, this is a complex problem that needs to be tackled on many fronts.

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It is also worth noting that the Fratelli d’Italia does not simply want to prevent any immigrants from entering, but rather chooses which immigrants it wants to integrate into its society, preferably those with certain characteristics that facilitate this integration. An example of this is that Italy was the fourth country to receive the most Ukrainian refugees after the Russian invasion.