Meet The Promising New Leader Of The Italian Right

She was later elected president of the ECR, the group of European conservatives, a move that represents the culmination of a path begun before last year’s European elections that saw her become one of the main political conservatives in Europe. Today the ECR brings together more than 40 European and Western parties and is an authoritative presence in Europe. It counts as a member the PIS, the main governing party in Poland, and was itself inspired by the British Conservative Party before Brexit.

In her address, Meloni affirmed that “the great challenge of our time is the defense of national identities and the very existence of states as the only means of protecting the sovereignty and freedom of peoples.” In this sense, the enemy was the “globalist drift of those who consider identity, in all its forms, an evil to be fought and constantly act to shift real power from the people to supranational entities.” The concepts of freedom, identity, and sovereignty recur in Meloni’s speeches. Fratelli d’Italia, meanwhile, fights “for a Europe of free and sovereign nations as an alternative to the bureaucratic superstate” formed after Maastricht. In this context, the “national conservatives” are the only ones who are defending the national state. Explaining this perspective, Meloni cites Roger Scruton and J.R.R. Tolkien as well as Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan.