Click to see the full-size image
Written by Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
There was a time in Europe when the slightest association with anything resembling Fascism (even if taken out of context) could ruin a politician’s career. Try to imagine a Prime Minister’s own party’s youth wing throwing literal Fascist salutes during a mass demonstration in a major European capital and nothing happening to this leader. Now imagine the same Prime Minister remains an ally of the incumbent European Commission President after that. Well, that’s Meloni in a nutshell. With the Meloni-Von der Leyen political alliance, far-right politics and even neo-Fascism has now officially become mainstream in Europe – as long as it supports the European Union bloc itself and the Atlantic Alliance.
Anchal Vohra, a columnist at Foreign Policy, wrote last week on how Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni went from “fringe player” to “EU power broker”. Unlike other European leaders who are often labeled as “far-right”, she has vocally defended NATO against Moscow and, as Vohra describes it, she “even proved to be useful to the EU establishment when she convinced Hungarian President Viktor Orban to sign off on an aid package for Ukraine in February.”
Meloni’s government is in a coalition with Lega, the populist party led by Matteo Salvini, who is Italy’s Vice-Premier. Today’s Lega party is the informal successor of the far-right Lega Nord per l’Indipendenza della Padania. Meloni’s own party has openly Fascist connections, as seen in January, when members of it publicly performed mass Roman salutes in Rome during an event, which prompted indignation. Even so, she has thus far kept good relations with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is the lead candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), the continent’s largest conservative bloc.
Speaking at the Maastricht Debate, von der Leyen suggested she could cooperate with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), who are known to be Eurosceptic, and are backed by Meloni. The next European Parliament could be the most “right-wing” in years, according to polls, so von der Leyen’s statement is actually not so surprising. In this scenario, Meloni could become “a parallel power center in a right-leaning European Parliament and yield unmatched influence on the commission president to push the body’s policy further right”, writes Vohra.
If one remembers the September 2023 Yaroslav Hunka scandal, it is easy to see that the phenomenon goes beyond Europe and the West is ready to embrace, whitewash or normalize even Nazism, as incredible as it may sound. 98-year old Mr. Hunka fought in the SS, the military arm of the German Nazi party (SS Division Galicia for Ukrainians) and yet was invited to speak at the House of Commons of Canada as a hero, where he boasted of having fought communism and received a standing ovation. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Recently, Canada’s memorial to Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division Ukrainian soldiers was removed after protests.
For a decade now, the West has been aiding, funding and whitewashing the most violent and radicalized and often openly neo-Nazi armed groups in Ukraine, which became a global hub for the far-right and White nationalists, according to TIME magazine.
Ironically, I wrote in June last year on how a Neo-Mccarthyist wave in Europe (not just in Poland) was persecuting dissident political parties, not just the far-right, but within the so-called Populist camp as well – for alleged ties with Russia.
This closely mirrors post-Maidan developments in Ukraine: in the Eastern European country there has been a war against part of the Orthodox Church, and at least 11 political parties have been banned so far over their “pro-Russia” stances. Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies (Freie Universität Berlin), has explained that, since the 2014 Maidan revolution, “pro-Russia” has been in fact used as a label to marginalize “anyone calling for Ukraine’s neutrality” as well as “state-developmentalist, anti-Western, illiberal, populist, left-wing, and many other discourses.” In a similar manner, current anti-Russian feelings in the West also feed on the tradition of anti-communist speech and extremist nationalism.
There is in fact no contradiction between a European war against political “dissidents” and the mainstreamization of part of the far-right. Meloni, for instance, has changed her critical stance on the current European bloc, perhaps upon realizing that she needs it.
Rather than being part of a radical/populist takeover of Europe, Giorgia Meloni, who (as Anchal Vohra describes her) acts as a “bridge” between “mainstream conservatives” and the “far-right”, is part not just of the (real) “fascistification” of Europe: it is also about the co-opting and the domestication of populists, radicals, far-rightists and any currents that happen to oppose European alignment with US-led NATO (today, for a number of reason, those are found mainly in the European right). In other words, what we currently have is the Maidanization of Europe, and a radicalized NATOized continent.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$ whore$
von der leyen – current president of the european commission. what the people have not chosen by voting! the eu cannot afford to criticize others for democracy. hungary voted wrongly when it did not want to support killing. it was subjected to sanctions and threats. ukrainian russians voted wrongly 2010, got a coup d’état and a nazi attack. gaddafi wanted a currency pegged to gold, bombed into the stone age.
when the so-called “extremists” get into government, some force makes them turn into the same herd of sheep as the others. that’s what happened to the swedish democrats in sweden, to the basic finns in finland. and in poland, germany, etc… and now in italy and france.
you have forgotten the 2005 referendum about european constitution. the frenchs voted no, but the vote was “cancelled”. they added a coma and the “new” constitution was adopted 3 years later without any vote. democracy fuck yeah !
and when the referendas in the netherlands and denmark were lost for the eu-side, eu arranged new referendas and spent even more money than the opposing side could raise and thus won the referandas for the union which has a serious deficit in democarcy-values and don’t mind hoodwink the populace!
i don’t think the average rightist person in europe supports either the eu or nato or the leftist immigration policies… but big joo money has bought off the heads of state regardless of what party or backround they come from.
meloni is turning out to be a big fat bimbo disappointment to the real right.
she’s a woman. only a man can really do the dirty job. but don’t be naive. nothing will change by putting a paper in a box.
meloni should be careful and not become overly friendly with frau genocide, mrs von der lugen, since she is devious and untrustworthy and is seeking support for her reelection in the summer, support she is badly in need of!
“reelection” nobody ever “elected” uschi van der lyin’. she don’t need no stinkin votes to run the evil eussr for her judaic puppeteer$! onward to the total collapse of the anglozionazi empire of filth.
giorgia meloni was at least normal. i though that she’s good one, not like this one.
viktor orban and his party maybe anything you think it is! but ha is a staunch pro-zionist, he has defended apartheid zionist state an netanyahu times after times!
with the inevitable destruction of the natostan rump ukrapper fascist project the evil eussr will cease to exist. urupp will break apart as nations seek to guarantee energy supplies from mother russia in the coming global financial collapse. pirate rock is ready to implode as the $lumvillain anglozionazi abomination gets ready for its long overdue civil war reloaded. karma is coming and the demons will not be spared. z and lots more of it!