Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her far-right “frenemy”, deputy premier Matteo Salvini, have kept their rivalry largely in check since their coalition took power in late 2022.
But tensions are likely to escalate ahead of European parliament elections in June, as Salvini attempts to rebuild support for his far-right League, which has been eclipsed by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI).
“He will try to make himself as visible as possible to wrest votes from her,” said Giovanni Orsina, a political science professor at Rome’s Luiss University. “I expect him to be more and more a pain in the neck.”
When Italians last voted in EU elections five years ago, Salvini was at the peak of his popularity and led the League to a triumphant victory, securing 34 per cent of the vote. Meloni’s FdI, whose political roots lie in the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement founded by Benito Mussolini loyalists after the second world war, was seen as a fringe party and garnered less than 6.5 per cent.
But since then, Meloni has become far more popular while Salvini’s star has waned. In Italy’s 2022 general election, FdI won nearly 26 per cent of the vote compared with the League’s 9 per cent, catapulting Meloni into the driver’s seat of their governing alliance. Recent opinion polls show support for Meloni’s party getting even stronger while the League struggles to catch up.
Analysts say Salvini is seeking to claw back support and avert further questions about his stewardship of the League, while Meloni will be looking to affirm her status as Italy’s pre-eminent rightwing leader.
“She wants affirmation that she is the leader of the centre-right,” said Ernesto Di Giovanni, a partner at Utopia, a Rome-based political consultancy. “That will establish her as the most important political figure in Italy.”
As a result, analysts expect more heated and visible competition within the ruling coalition. However, few expect relations to deteriorate to the point of jeopardising the government’s stability given that both leaders want to stay in power.
“A lot of it will be to put up a show,” said Daniele Albertazzi, a political science professor at the University of Surrey. “I don’t see a chance of this coalition disintegrating.”
In office, Meloni — once a fierce Eurosceptic — has tried to reposition herself as a more mainstream conservative leader, ready to work constructively with Brussels and other EU capitals.
Her staunch support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, has also set her apart from other far-right European leaders with historical ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
Meloni is now being courted by the centre-right European People’s party, which hopes to secure her backing for a second term for Ursula von der Leyen at the helm of the European Commission.
“Meloni has chosen a strategy to be responsible, to be accepted and to demonstrate that a rightwing government in Italy is not a catastrophe,” Orsina said. “She is moving to the centre — [albeit] with many ambiguities.”
Di Giovanni said Meloni hoped to appeal to the type of conservative voters who historically supported the late Silvio Berlusconi. His death last year has cast uncertainty over the future of his Forza Italia party, which is part of Meloni’s coalition. “She is moving to a different [part of the] electorate — not the far right but more moderate,” Di Giovanni said.
Salvini, meanwhile, is strengthening his alliances with far-right Eurosceptics, including France’s Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and politicians from Germany’s AfD.
“His message to voters is: ‘if you are angry, if you are a Eurosceptic, if you have kept that hostility towards the mainstream . . . I am the person to vote for’,” Orsina said.
Illegal immigration — a hot-button issue for the Italian right — is one area where Meloni could find herself under fire after a 50 per cent increase in irregular migrants arriving in Italy last year.
When a migrant reception centre on the Italian island of Lampedusa was overwhelmed in autumn, Andrea Crippa, the League’s deputy leader, said Meloni’s efforts to find a European solution to the migration crisis had failed. Salvini subsequently declared that “desperate times call for drastic measures” and suggested a naval blockade to prevent migrant landings.
Meloni has tried to pre-empt criticism flaring up again, admitting in December that she had not yet been able to “deliver the expected results” on what she called “the most complex phenomenon”. But she insisted she would continue to work to curb illegal arrivals after securing a deal with Albania to set up migrant centres under Italian authority.
But as elections near, analysts say Meloni could feel compelled to take a more intransigent position on EU issues to reassure her traditional base she has not deviated from her political roots.
In December, FdI disappointed some in Brussels by voting against reforms to the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone bailout fund, dashing hopes that Italy — the only EU country that has yet to ratify the changes — would get on board.
“I don’t expect major rifts, but there is going to be competition over who is the more nationalist and sovereigntist,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of Rome’s Institute of International Affairs.
Analysts are sceptical that Salvini’s tactics will yield results and say the bigger risk to Meloni is that if her party performs too strongly, it could create a genuine rupture between the coalition partners.
“If she overshoots and does much better compared to the national election results, the balance tilts significantly in her favour,” said Tocci. “That may not be a good thing for her. It could imperil the governing coalition — and she has the highest stakes in it.”
