Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Giorgia Meloni met with European People’s Party (EPP) leader Manfred Weber in Rome as the two leaders work toward an alliance ahead of the 2024 European elections.
Weber, who was in Rome for the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI, met with Meloni on Thursday.
This is the second time in less than two months that Meloni and Weber have met, following a meeting on 11 November at the government headquarters in Rome.
Meloni aims to unhinge the alliance between the EPP and Socialists & Democrats (S&D), especially after the ‘Qatargate’ scandal that cast a shadow over the leftist group.
Socialists accuse EPP and Renew of normalising far right
The Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament accused the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Renew group of contributing to the normalisation of the extreme right and links with Russia.
Their meeting on Thursday “follows a work that has been going on for some time,” government sources told Adnkronos.
The first step was the election of the European Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola in January 2022, thanks to the votes of ECR and EPP. Later, during the summer of 2022, Weber himself openly campaigned for the rightist coalition led by Meloni ahead of the Italian elections at the end of September.
EU Parliament chief says ‘one cannot work with extremists’
Pro-European political forces cannot work with extremists who want to ruin Europe, Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, told EURACTIV Italy in an interview on Wednesday.
Asked if she could see a possible alliance of the EPP group with …
The rapprochement between the EPP and the ECR group is seen to be given a tailwind by one of the Italian prime minister’s loyalists, EU Affairs Minister and MEP Raffaele Fitto, who is a member of Meloni’s party but was previously an MP for Forza Italia (EPP).
Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi and Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani were also present at the meeting.
“We discussed all the issues the EU was dealing with and shared our concerns,” Berlusconi wrote on social media. “I was very pleased to hear from Weber the importance given to Forza Italia in the EPP and in Europe,” he added.
Tajani said the meeting served to talk about “the future of Europe and the challenges we will have to face together at the EU level.”
Conservative MEP Nicola Procaccini (ECR) said that the dialogue between Conservatives and Populars is strengthening “also thanks to the fact that the two political forces are consolidating in their respective countries.”
“The 2024 vote will be the last chance to have a European Parliament that will take the Union on the tracks we have always hoped for: a model of Europe that does not humiliate the nations but takes them into account,” the MEP added.
The only snag, he reveals, is represented by Civic Platform (PPE), the party of former European Council President and ex-EPP chief Donald Tusk, which is in opposition to the Polish government party Law and Justice (PiS), part of the ECR in Brussels.
Polish opposition mulls unity ahead of elections
Poland’s two former presidents have invited the leaders of Poland’s opposition to a meeting to agree on a joint strategy for the upcoming pre-election season.
Aleksander Kwasniewski, Polish president between 1995 and 2005, and Bronislaw Komorowski, who held the role between …
“In October, there will be elections in Poland, and if this obstacle is overcome, I think it will be even easier at this point to imagine that in the 2024 European elections, things can go smoothly,” Procaccini said.
(Federica Pascale | EURACTIV.it)
Source: euractiv.com
