The leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy could win the parliamentary elections in Italy. That would spell chaos for Europe, says political scientist Sofia Ventura.
Selfie with supporters: Giorgia Meloni during the election campaign in Milan Photo: Flavio Lo Scalzo / reuters
taz at the weekend: Ms. Ventura, Giorgia Meloni and their Brothers of Italy party are the favorites for the next parliamentary elections. What do you expect?
Sofia Ventura: They will probably rule us for the next five years. The question is not whether they win, but by how much.
Giorgia Meloni campaigned as a “European conservative” and said she would belong to the Tories in Britain. Do you get the truth there?
Well, the British Conservatives have clearly slid to the right, towards populist positions, just think of Brexit. But in the field of civil rights or family portraits, for example, I am not at all in the position of conservative Catholicism that the Brothers of Italy (FdI) preaches. These are openly reactionary positions. Meloni is certainly not in the tradition of European conservatives, who generally represented a liberal conservatism in which the rule of law, the separation of powers and respect for citizens’ rights play an important role.
How would you describe Meloni’s attitude?
It is reactionary – and from this revolutionary attitude, in the sense of a revolution against the liberal model of an open society in which the individual matters more than the community. In his book “I am Giorgia” there are passages in which he supports a model of medieval society, with the family – not the individual – as a basic unit, then the village comes, the guilds and the professions come. You have in mind an organic society in the sense of a reactionary Catholicism.
What does this mean in particular?
This means that it seeks closeness to right-wing Catholics when it comes to civil rights, whether it is homosexual rights or abortion. But our societies are no longer like that – and that is what makes her a revolutionary fighting for a backward restructuring, not very different from Victor Orbán.
How do you feel about Orbán?
She is sympathetic to him. In any case, you accused the EU of using the rule of law procedure against Hungary “like a club”.
The Meloni festival follows the tradition of fascism. However, in a video message distributed in English, Spanish and French, he now declared that the FdI had “handed over fascism to history”. What does it mean?
I think she’s telling us to finally leave her alone with this. You don’t want to take this seriously. If the right wins the elections, there will be no fascist militias wandering the streets here. I call it “post-fascist”. Very young, she will become active in the successor party of Mussolini’s fascism, the MSI. She lived this holiday like her family and many early activists are still by her side today. You don’t want to make a clear break with this past. And when she talks about fascism, what she comes to mind is that she wasn’t even born at the time.
But he never spoke of Benito Mussolini or the Duce.
Positive never – it would also be suicidal. But she never spoke negatively about him either. In her book, Giorgia Meloni condemns the racial laws of 1938, but in the style of an Alice in Wonderland, which she doesn’t quite know who drafted them.
But you say that in your party “there is no place for those nostalgic for fascism”.
The hard core of fascist nostalgics does not play a role in their electorate, but in the ranks of those active in the party they do. Most of the voters of FdI do not consider themselves either fascist or anti-fascist. They are helped by the fact that Italy has faced its past much less than Germany. This is how the picture emerged that Mussolini’s fascists came from Mars, so to speak, in a country inhabited by good people.
And what about those who are active in the party?
They are different from the past. Just one example: on October 28, 2019, several Marche officials met for a dinner on the occasion of the anniversary of Mussolini’s march on Rome. There was also a politician who, a year later, ran for the FdI in the regional elections and was elected President of the Marche Region without ever being struck by Melonis’ ban on nostalgics. In fact, I can’t think of a single case where he actually took action against the “nostalgics” in the party. Marine Le Pen in France was tougher: she threw several “nostalgics” out of the Rassemblement National.
The scientist
Sofia Ventura, 58, is a professor of political science at the University of Bologna.
He is afraid of it
From the incompetence of a right-wing government and its lack of awareness of how a true liberal democracy works.
This gives her hope
That the Italians understood how (in) capable the right-wing government is. And that the left must finally wake up after the expected defeat and realize that it is not enough to occupy positions of power in the state to create consensus in the electorate.
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Meloni also attaches great importance to the claim that it does not pose a threat to Europe. What is your real attitude towards the EU?
Meloni has always been “for Europe” – but for a “different Europe”, for the “Europe of the peoples”. There the emphasis is on national sovereignty. And, like Poland or Hungary, they want to know nothing about the primacy of European law over national law. In doing so, the essence of European integration emerges. And their common “European values” are by no means the values of the Enlightenment, freedom, equality, fraternity, but the values of “Christian Europe”. You have absolutely nothing to do with a federal Europe, you speak of stopping at the “Confederation of States”.
Their friendships seem like that.
It is part of a radical right-wing network beyond Europe. This includes US Republicans, and also Steve Bannon, who has been the host of FdI events. It has nothing to do with a social and liberal Europe. And while he is now clearly on Ukraine’s side, he has always seen Putin’s Russia as a role model in defending traditional Christian values.
So what can Europe expect if it wins the elections?
Especially that it causes chaos. The key question is: how long will he remain in power? It depends on how much damage it can do. He will almost certainly want to present himself as an opponent of the EU Commission on many issues, if only because he wants to demonstrate at home that he has defended Italian interests against multinationals, against high finance, against the bureaucrats in Brussels. Eventually she too will seek compromises, but unlike Mario Draghi she will certainly not be perceived as friendly in Europe. Draghi, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz understand each other, it will not be the case with Meloni.
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