French far‐right leader Marine Le Pen was featured on the guest list of the 35th Pontida rally, League’s annual celebration in Lombardy on 17 September, when they are expected to announce their view of how the bloc should look ahead of next year’s EU Elections.
Salvini’s League and Le Pen’s Rassemblement National are part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament, which they founded and includes the German AfD party. Employment, national security, the fight against irregular immigration and cutting red tape in the EU are among the issues the EU group focuses on, often with a Eurosceptic slant.
“There is a special relationship between Marine and Matteo, who had a very good idea in inviting her, since today relations with our allies at the international level are increasingly important for domestic politics as well”, MEP Marco Campomenosi, the League’s group leader in Brussels, told EURACTIV.
The Pontida rally is an important event for the party, and this year, Campomenosi explains.
This time, the focus will be on taking stock of the League’s experience in the current government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d’Italia (ECR)), but also on charting the course for the upcoming EU elections in June next year.
“It will not be a Pontida like the others. Together with us, we will also have a great friend and historical ally of the League, Marine Le Pen, who will arrive directly from Paris by plane to make this day of celebration a moment of unity among peoples for a Europe that is finally free”, Salvini wrote on social media.
“Dear Italian friends, it is with great pleasure that I will be at your side (…) invited by my great friend Matteo Salvini. We will naturally evoke the future, the joy of fighting together for freedom, for the democracy of our peoples, our nations”, Le Pen said in a video.
The Rassemblement National leader, who has stood for the French presidential election three times, will be the guest of honour at the big event and the only international guest on stage, along with Vice-Premier Salvini and leading party figures.
However, the announcement comes as one of the government’s allies in Italy – Vice-Premier Antonio Tajani (Forza Italia/EPP) – has repeatedly made it clear that Le Pen and her party have no hope of joining the centre-right front in Europe, meaning Manfred Weber’s European People’s Party (EPP).
“What Tajani said about Le Pen is a bit of a retort to Weber’s words. Both of them know the situation in France well but pretend not to understand how much Marine Le Pen has done in recent years to become a figure that by now even her opponents believe is ready for a possible governmental test”, Campomenosi said.
“In my opinion, it is rather necessary to ask Marine what is the future of the RN concerning the major European issues because it may be that her party is making an evolution just as the League and other movements have done”, he added.
Campomenosi said the EPP has individuals within it who prefer dialogue with socialists rather than right parties.
“Certain distinctions about Marine Le Pen today, in my opinion, no longer make any sense and implicitly are confirmation that someone in the EPP prefers to govern with the Socialist group and not with the other centre-right parties”, Campomenosi added.
“This is unfortunate. We will work to make sure that this does not happen and that instead, we can create a centre-right alternative at the European level as well, and that Marine Le Pen and anyone who wants to be there will obviously be included in this”, he also said.
(Federica Pascale | Euractiv.it)
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