European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “must open up to the ECR, of which [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni is leader” to win the upcoming European Parliament vote and keep her job for a second term, according to Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani.
In an interview with Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera on July 1, he said he felt “von der Leyen will pass the [EP] vote, [but to do so] she will be forced to open up to the Conservatives, and I believe she will”.
Tajani said she could only get a “large and certain” majority by expanding her coalition to include Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
Those extra votes would not only prove vital for von der Leyen in securing her own election but also that of each member of the EC, Tajani noted.
The European Parliament “gives its approval on Commissioners, which can change from dossier to dossier”, he pointed out.
The leaders of the European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe groups made “a serious mistake” in sidelining Meloni in the European Council’s June 27 meeting to select who would get the EU’s top jobs, Tajani said.
“Unfortunately, unlike in the past, there is a lack of great leaders who know how to approach these negotiations,” he said, adding he had learned from “two great teachers, [former Italian president Silvio] Berlusconi and [Italian journalist Indro] Montanelli”.
Even if von der Leyen had to expand her coalition, Tajani said the Forza Italia party, which he leads and which is part of the EPP, still “would not have accepted an opening to the Greens” by her EPP group, he said.
Unlike the Greens/EFA bloc, the EPP is “for a third way between fundamentalism and climate denial [which is] the way of social and economic safeguarding of jobs” Tajani told Corriere della Sera.
Greens MEPs have told Brussels Signal they hoped to have more influence from von der Leyen’s need to expand her coalition. Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, von der Leyen’s domestic party, has been forced to deny many of its members may vote against her if she made an agreement with the Greens.
Although Tajani’s Forza Italia party, which he leads, was part of the EPP, he said he was “always for the principle of stability”, and that “Europe needs stability”. Forza Italia is one of Meloni’s two domestic coalition partners.
With France holding the second round of its general elections on July 7, Tajani added: “We will co-operate with the French Government, whoever wins. If my counterpart is from [Marine] Le Pen’s [National Rally] party, I will deal with him,” he said.
Rome-based daily La Notizia Giornale argued a weakened French President Emmanuel Macron could strengthen Meloni’s hand in Europe.
Meloni and Macron both aimed to have one of their own countrymen installed as senior EC vice-president in economic policy.
Yet for France, “cohabitation” with the hard-right National Rally would call into question both Macron’s candidate Thierry Breton and France’s preferred Commission role, the news outlet said.
The head of the other party in Meloni’s coalition, Lega leader and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, indicated his party would likely join the European Parliament’s new emerging right-wing grouping Patriots for Europe.
“We are evaluating all the documents but it seems to me to be the right path,” he said.
“Uniting those who put work, family and the future of young people at the centre seems to me to be the right path,” and it was “what the Lega has been hoping for for a long time”, Salvini said.
