Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing coalition, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), managed to secure key positions in more than 10 European Parliament committees following this year's European elections.
Of the 20 parliamentary committees and four sub-committees, the ECR group has been allotted 13 posts, including three chairpersons and 10 vice-chairpersons.
Seven of the committee posts, which deal with key issues like foreign affairs, security, the environment and public health, have been given to members of Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party, up from one in the previous parliamentary term. Brothers of Italy's Carlo Fidanza told DW the party was “proud” of the increase.
The new European Parliament is leaning more right-wing
To watch this video, please enable JavaScript and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
Reacting to the news on July 23, Nicola Procaccini, co-chair of the ECR group and an Italian Brotherhood lawmaker, welcomed the Brotherhood’s expanding role in EU parliamentary affairs.
“Despite attempts by the left to boycott us in every committee, the positive outcome of today's vote shows that the majority has shifted and that the Conservative Party can exert a decisive influence in this parliament for the next five years,” he said in a statement.
The rise of the ECR “threatens liberal democratic values”
However, some observers fear that having ECR representatives in such powerful Commission leadership positions will not only influence the parliament's agenda, but also lead to the normalisation of the far-right within the European Parliament and the erosion of democratic values.
“The normalization of the far-right, as the ECR's actions show, and the failure of mainstream political organisations to maintain a cordon around it, threatens liberal democratic values,” Susanna Begh, a programme officer at the German Marshall Fund, a US public policy think tank, told X. A cordon refers to the firewall strategy adopted by mainstream political parties to thwart the power of the far-right by refusing to cooperate.
“If this trend continues, it could call into question the achievements of European integration,” she added.
While not all parties in the European Commission are considered far-right, the dominance of the Brotherhood of Italy has worried some lawmakers and political analysts. Julian Hoyez, editor of the political newsletter and consultant on EU affairs, said the European Commission is divided between “Eurosceptic right-wingers and more harmful far-right forces.” The growing presence of Brotherhood of Italy members in particular in the EU could have a “negative impact on women's rights, press freedom and the proper management of migration issues,” he added.
“They may try to push for policies that would block asylum seekers and guest workers from entering Europe,” Hoyez said.
Vegh noted that the President and Vice-Presidents play a key role in planning and running the European Parliament's legislative work: they not only ensure that debates take place on various bills, but also set the agenda, manage meetings and oversee who handles key documents relating to specific bills.
“These are key positions for influencing legislative activity,” she told DW. “Normalization (of the far right) increases the chances for representatives of these parties to influence European legislation in a way that is in line with their ideological and policy lines.”
How right-wing are our Italian compatriots?
After the far-right gained influence in the new European Parliament in June's EU elections, centrist groups joined forces to block far-right lawmakers from taking leadership positions in the commission.
These far-right groups include Patriots for Europe, the third largest group in parliament along with France's National Rally and Hungary's Fidesz, and the Sovereign States Europe group, whose members also include the far-right Alternative for Germany.
France's Marine Le Pen (right) has teamed up with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to launch the far-right Patriots for Europe party, the third largest group in parliament. Photo: Vojtek Radwanski/AFP
The number of seats a political group gets on a committee is proportional to the group's influence in parliament. Political groups decide internally which members will sit on which committees and propose their own names, but the chair and vice-chair are elected by the members of the committees.
Committee members imposed quarantine measures on the Union of European Patriots and the League of Sovereign European States, but not on the Union of European Socialists and the League of Italian Brothers, because they are not far-right, Fidanza said, blaming the label on left-wing parties.
“This is the usual left rhetoric,” he said, noting that there are two political groups further to the right than the ECR. “No one with a modicum of decency in Europe would consider our party to be 'far-right.' Our positive results in parliament confirm this.”
Despite his moderation, Meloni remains a problem
Both France's Rally National's Messrs. Meloni and Marine Le Pen have toned down their parties' most extreme policies in recent years to boost voter support, but analyst Hez said they are not particularly far apart and a lot of the toning down and neutralizing is down to communication strategies.
“Melone is a little bit more centrist than Le Pen, so you could say she is the more moderate, but they both represent the far right,” he added.
“The Italian Brothers today fall into the populist far-right category based on their ideology and the process of moderation under Giorgia Meloni,” said the German Marshall Fund's Wegh, “but the party's original roots were linked to far-right neo-fascist movements.”
Brothers of Italy have their roots in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was founded by officials loyal to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Meloni was a member of the youth wing of the MSI and its successor, the National League, and founded Brothers of Italy in 2012.
Italy: Why do people vote for right-wing populists?
To watch this video, please enable JavaScript and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
Since becoming Italy's prime minister in 2022, Meloni has toned down his eurosceptic stance and sided with Ukraine over Russia, a shift that has been well received by EU leaders. Before taking office, he had praised President Vladimir Putin's re-election victory in 2018 as the will of the Russian people, but more recently he has been seen as a vocal critic of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Meloni is an opponent of Putin and aligns himself with key EU defence policies, but is still seen as having problems with European values and the framework for protecting them, such as media freedom.
In its latest rule of law report, the European Commission accused Meloni's government of undermining media freedom in Italy since taking office. Journalists for Italy's public broadcaster RAI staged a walkout in May, accusing the government of stifling freedom of speech.
The EU called on Meloni's government to “take into account European standards on the protection of journalists” and “put in place rules and mechanisms for funding public service media” to guarantee their independence.
Far-right criticizes EU environmental policy
Katarina Barley, a leading centre-left Social Democrat politician, said in early July that the Patriots “must be isolated in the European Parliament” and prevented from “hindering constructive politics” in Europe, a view shared by Green/European Liberal Alliance co-chair Terry Reintke, who told German media that far-right forces could destroy the party's “green” policies.
“This adventurous right-wing extremist movement must not be given the chair of the committee because their only aim is to close down Europe, polarise societies and abolish the Green Deal, democracy, the rule of law and press freedom,” she said.
Farmers protest in Brussels at EU agriculture ministers' meeting
To watch this video, please enable JavaScript and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
But the Green Deal is also expected to be one of the priorities for the ECR and its Italian compatriots over the next five years.
“We want to renegotiate the most important acts of the Green Deal, starting with banning conventional fuels and diesel engines by 2035,” Fidanza said. The second vice-president of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee is fellow Italian lawmaker Pietro Fiocchi, so the group is expected to try to weaken the EU's recent environmental laws.
A recent report by the German Marshall Fund noted that while ideological echoes of non-far-right political groups persist in EU politics, “there is a gradual process of normalising parts of the far-right”.
Editors: Kate Hairsine, Martin Kubler
