Rivalries on the Right: The 2024 EP elections in Italy and their main implications on the parties in government

Italy is the only EU member state where the parties of the governing coalition – led by Giorgia Meloni – appear divided at the EU level, while also retaining significant roles within three different party groups in the European parliament. After the 2019 EP elections, starting from the radical right, the League led by Matteo Salvini is the most represented party in the ID party group, Meloni has been confirmed as President of the ECR in 2023, while Forza Italia (FI) has been the main Italian party in the EPP since 1999. In 2023, the death of Silvio Berlusconi has left FI with no political heir. As a recent analysis confirms (Rahat, 2022), the degree of control the leader kept over his party has no parallel across contemporary democracies. While EP's former President Antonio Tajani was nominated party secretary after Berlusconi’s death, it is unclear as yet how the party will survive – electorally and financially – without its founder and leader. Against such background, building on previous research on both the Brothers of Italy (Baldini et al. 2022) and FI (Baldini and Ventura 2024), and considering the ambitions cultivated by Meloni to foster the centrality of the ECR inside the EP, this paper analyses the 2024 EP elections and the first scenarios that lie ahead on the positions and strategies of the parties in government in Italy at the EU level. References: Baldini, G., F. Tronconi, and D. Angelucci. 2022. "Yet Another Populist Party? Understanding the Rise of Brothers of Italy." South European Society and Politics 27 (3): 385–405 Baldini G. Ventura, S. 2024. The Italian Right after Berlusconi, Contemporary Italian Politics, forthcoming Rahat, G. 2022. Party types in the age of personalized politics. Perspectives on Politics. doi.org/10.1017/S1537592722000366.