In Giorgia Meloni the Italians could not have elected a prime minister more inimical to the Brussels elite. From the Roman Garbatella district, Meloni is a big-spending anti-woke nationalist who is riding the civic anger of unchecked illegal immigration.
Needing Brussels’ largesse, it’s more likely that a showdown will be instigated by the EU, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen already advertising her “tools” to keep Meloni’s Italy under control.
Brussels should be careful. Meloni could be another Bernadette Devlin, who assaulted UK home secretary Reginald Maudling during a 1972 House of Commons debate on the Northern Irish “Troubles”.
Italy has just celebrated 150 years as a unified whole. Previously, the area consisted of eight states, all governed with varying levels of brutality and corruption. Since the World War 2 Italy became a republic and experienced 18 years of intense industrial expansion, accompanied by an urban migration. This was followed by the Red Brigade’s “years of lead”, and entry to the EU.
Italy has had 69 governments in almost as many years, the latest being led by Brussels-approved experts. The Italian economy has been strangled by the euro, depending on soft loans from the European Central Bank, which rising interest rates now threaten.
If Italy is a pizza margherita whose topping was modelled on the Italian tricolour, basil for the green, mozzarella for the white and San Marzano tomatoes for the red, then Meloni may be the pizza cutter who liberates her patria from the EU, but also inadvertently cuts it, pizza like, into those original components.
James Cunningham
Camps Bay
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