Is Brothers of Italy a ‘far right’ party? “To do without the billions from the recovery plan would be suicidal,” said Sebastien Maillard, director of the Jacques Delors institute. “We will give them the benefit of the doubt,” said an EU official, who works closely with Italy on economic issues. “We will judge them on their programme, who will be the finance minister. The names being mentioned are people that we in Brussels are familiar with,” the official added.
However, when it comes to Russia, many fear that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will find in Italy a quick ally in his quest to water down measures against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A longtime friend of the Kremlin, Salvini has promised that he will not try to undo the EU sanctions. But many believe that his government will make the process more arduous in the coming months.
Whether the war or soaring inflation, “what we are facing in the coming months is going to be very difficult and very much test European unity”, said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive at the European Policy Centre.
The likely election result in Italy is “not going to help in making some of these hard decisions”, he added.
France’s European affairs minister, Laurence Boone, pointed to the headache of the far-right’s unpredictability.
“One day they are for the euro, one day they are not for the euro. One day they support Russia, one day they change their minds,” she told French radio.
“We have European institutions that work. We will work together. But it is true that it is worrying,” she added
