Former EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is warning his party friends in the European EPP party family against close cooperation with Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “I am strictly against Meloni joining the EPP,” the Luxembourger told the Catholic newspaper “Die Tagespost”. This would be tantamount to trivializing the extreme right.
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He admits that Meloni behaves more compliantly in Europe. Before the election, she did not hide her actual ideas, explained Juncker, who was also Prime Minister of Luxembourg for many years before his term as EU Commission President (2014-2019).
CSU politicians open to cooperation
The CSU politician and EVP leader Manfred Weber, among others, had recently shown himself open to working with Meloni. He said last year that he shared concerns about the history of Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party. But today we are talking to each other about how we can solve Europe’s big questions together as Europeans. Meloni is constructive on the subject of Europe, stands on the side of Ukraine, and there are no problems with the rule of law in Italy.
Shortly before the EPP congress, Weber reiterated this position. “Why shouldn’t we work with right-wing conservatives like Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala?” he told “Welt am Sonntag”. In the newly elected European Parliament, selective cooperation with Europe-friendly conservatives is just as conceivable as cooperation with the Greens.
In addition to the German CDU and CSU, the EPP includes the Italian Forza Italia, Spain’s conservative People’s Party PP and the Austrian ÖVP. The Fratelli d’Italia MEPs are currently members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group. This also includes, for example, the national conservative Polish ruling party PiS and the former AfD MP Lars Patrick Berg from Germany.
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Former EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is warning his party friends in the European EPP party family against close cooperation with Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “I am strictly against Meloni joining the EPP,” the Luxembourger told the Catholic newspaper “Die Tagespost”. This would be tantamount to trivializing the extreme right.
He admits that Meloni behaves more compliantly in Europe. Before the election, she did not hide her actual ideas, explained Juncker, who was also Prime Minister of Luxembourg for many years before his term as EU Commission President (2014-2019).