"It now seems clear that rather than arising from a change of heart, Meloni’s early pro-European maneuvers were intended to neutralize criticism. Less than two years after she took office, her policies began creeping rightward again—at first, in the domestic sphere. Meloni attempted to increase her control over Italy’s judiciary, lambasting the courts as political for hobbling her ability to offshore refugees to Albania. Her government sought to intimidate critical journalists and moved to replace top officials at Italy’s public broadcaster RAI, earning a public reprimand from the European Commission for restricting the media’s independence. And in late 2023, Meloni’s team proposed a reform of the Italian constitution to concentrate more power in the prime minister’s hands.
Gradually, the prime minister also began to pivot back toward the right on European issues and on foreign policy. When Italy took over the G-7 presidency in January 2024, for instance, it insisted on diluting or removing language supporting LGBTQ and abortion rights from the G-7 leaders’ final communiqué. Trump’s November 2024 election made the rightward shift easier. Last month, Meloni praised U.S. Vice President JD Vance when he denounced the “weakness” of Europe at the Munich Security Conference. Then, in an online address to the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), she lashed out at the mainstream U.S. media, “woke” ideology, and a globalist elite."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/why-europes-far-right-cant-be-tamed?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=The%20Russia%20That%20Putin%20Made&utm_content=20250417&utm_term=EDZZZ003ZX