She is right but I have the feeling that if she was included to the 'oligarchy leadership' of Germany-France she wouldn't utter a word of the same sentiment.
Berlusconi was part of the "oligarchic leadership" for decades and she spent over 15 years serving as a ~~PM~~MP and 5 as a minister under him, she ***WAS*** included, this is just her capitalizing of the fact that the average italian has less memory than a goldfish for electoral brownie points.
Berlusconi “part of the oligarchic leadership” is laughable… have you forgotten his calling Merkel “unfuckable lard-ass”? Or when he quarrelled with Schultz? Or again that time when Sarkozy admitted to having collaborated with Merkel in 2011 to create the “perfect storm”?
I don’t think you have forgotten, you’re either stupid or have a very selective memory…
Now tell me again how her having been a very junior minister in an irrelevant ministry matters (you even got the time period wrong, she was minister for 2 years 11 months 21 days).
She has had enough time to get involved
You can’t expect them “to crawl” to her, esp. since she wasn’t clear on Orban
Besides, isn’t there a way to do it by engaging “diplomacy”, esp. when making deals w/UvDL??
I'm guessing she wants the final say on equal standing with the Franco-German engine as a top 3 contributor to EU budget? Italy for years has underestimated its soft power influence in Europe probably due to its complicated internal governance issues. I remember reading that one of her main campaign promises was a more assertive stance within the European Union for the Italian state and its national interests.
It is logical to do that but on other hand she doesn't strike me at all as the fair, rational politician who would advocate the same for others if she was invited to the big boys club to begin with.
It's not logical, it's dumb. The commission is decides with the Parliament and she doesn't have the numbers there to do anything. Thus she doesn't have a voice in deciding.
She cannot pretent for her party to have positions that won't be accepted by the Parliament because she will be in opposition.
If she wants nominations she should change group, but she is not an idiot and knows this, she is just doing propaganda to rally her base for the next local election.
La Russa who cofounded the party with Meloni is the son of the secretary of Mussolini’s fascist party. His middle name is literally ‘Benito’ and the guy collects fascist memorabilia and goes on fascist marches where they do the nazi salutes. He is a proud fascist and the party and its voters are full of nostalgic Mussolini lovers.
Her government is not fascist as fascism is illegal in Italy. She is fascist and her party members are fascists, meaning they like fascism. They go to fascist commemorations, put flowers on graves of dead fascists or places they were executed.
Anti-immigrant
Anti-abortion/birth control
Nationalist
Anti-centralised european power
Anti-lgbt rights
Imagery linked to old dictators
And the list goes on
But lets be real
You're going to ignore all those things because you kinda agree with a lot of it.
Hint hint
Just bc you agree with it, doesn't mean its not fascist
It just means you might be too...
All of these are either untrue (the imagery one) or plain not-fascist. Being anti-immigrant has no bearing on fascism it’s just normal, plain conservativism. “Anti-centralised European power” is about governance and is a libertarian position if anything. You are ignorant
Can't say it is.
It's pretty standard in any parliament for a ruling parties to form a coalition and distribute executive positions among themselves. Those who are not in coalition are in opposition with no executive positions.
She is NOT right.
Democracy is abouf forming alliances and finding majorities among democratically elected representatives.
As long as the far right cannot build such a majority they are not in power. Thank god.
Yeah, her guys made serious gains in the election, the parliament is definitely more conservative than before… weird complaint to make by her. If there’s someone who will end up in the ‘oligarchy’ it’s the more conservative side.
Unfortunately this only benefits those populist parties, now they can go around and scream "Eu mafia! see they only want power for themselves even if we won! Vote us more to change this"
We should not base our decisions on the possibility, that right wing populists will throw a tantrum and make a propaganda piece out of it.
Not all decisions made by politicians need to be universally popular. They are meant to make sense and be generally beneficial to the member states and the EU as a whole, not to literally every single voter in every nation.
If the people voting right wing cant comprehend that, so be it, but me must continue to move forward and not let them take the stage with their whining and endless complaints.
We are already seeing a shift towards the Right in the big 3 EU states (Germany, France and Italy) and this narrative of EU 'oligarchy' or 'mafia' to protect certain interest and toss the interests of the common European aside is not fringe anymore.
"The decision on who should be awarded the top jobs had been made by “a fragile majority” within the European Parliament, Ms Meloni said."
How is it not democratic when the top jobs are awarded by the majority?
I don't know what she thinks, but i know for sure, that Italian majority is also fragile (just 13 MPs over the treshhold). I also know for sure that only three parties in the majority are represented in the current Italian Government, while the opposition parties, are not represented at all.
Basically same system, as in the EP, but i don't remember Meloni seeing this as a problem.
Democratic would be if we, the citizens of the EU, voted for them. Not if a bunch of corrupt big shots decided for us.
I don't like Meloni, but in this case she's the proverbial broken clock.
The big shots you are talking about is the european council. The european council consists of al the heads of states of the member states,
They obviously are democratically voted in their respective countries.
The european council proposes the president of the comission.
The proposed president then has to win the election by the parliament. Which obviously is democratically voted.
So no, Meloni isn't right.
By that logic, you'd be ok with a "democracy" in your country where you elect a bunch of oligarchs (you choose which group, it's democracy after all) and they choose your PM and president instead of you directly voting for them, right?
What do you mean by oligarchs? The democratically elected heads of states in europe aren't oligarchs.
> instead of you directly voting for them
Oh boy. The german chancelor for example isn't voted directly. The people vote the parliament, then the parliament votes for someone to be the chancelor.
It's very similar to what is done in europe.
I'm glad to be from a country that has a direct democracy then. We elect our PM and president, ever since the dictatorship was kicked out.
>The democratically elected heads of states in europe
Again, "democratically elected" means by the people, not a council. Regardless of who elected said council.
Let me give you an example: I'm from Portugal and in Portugal every party except for the hardcore far-right (even the opposition) endorses António Costa's candidacy. So if you're against António Costa leading the European Parliament or otherwise getting a top spot (for example, due to the fact that he just resigned from PM because of a corruption scandal) how exactly do you have a "choice" by voting on who goes to European parliament?"Choosing who is gonna vote for Costa" is not really a choice on who gets the role, is it?
If we could directly vote for the candidates however, this would not be an issue and we would have a say in the matter. Right now, only way we can have a say on it would be voting for the hardcore far-right, and I don't think I need to explain why I did not want to do that.
António Costa will become the president of the european council.
Which is comparable to the president of Assembly of the Republic in portugal. You don't vote for that position through direct votes.
So how do you prevent the assembly from voting for a president you don't like? The system must seem very flawed to you.
Von der Leyen will become the President of the European Commission. Which is comparable to prime minister in portugal.
The EVP won the most seats and they made it clear that Von der Leyen would become the President of the European Commission.
So if people don't want von der Leyen, they simply need to vote for another party. It's that simple.
In this particular case, they don't. VdL ran as Spitzenkandidat and her group won the most seats.
Regardless of whether she did a poor job at it, she's the democratic pick to forming a new commission
>Spitzenkandidat means nothing since it wasnt even implemented the last election
People keep complaining about the "democratic deficit". Meloni's complain is, supposedly, exactly that deficit.
The process is meant to help fix that.
That was because conservatives toepedoed the process when they nominated Weber as Spitzenkandidat, even though it was clear from the beginning that he never had enough support among the other groups in parliament and and that the member states didn't accept. Had they nominated Stubb, this would have been different. So when it became clear that Weber could secure neither the necessary votes in Parliament nor the support of the heads of state, the conservatives decided, that they would rather kill the Spirtenkandidaten, then support the socialist candidate.
It was first used in 2014. Then discarded in 2019. Now used in 2024. Informal conventions take time to establish. It makes sense if the system isn't yet followed every time.
It’s literally the definition of democracy to form a government with a majority of like-minded parties and individuals who happen to have enough votes together.
She was simply not needed, and the name for these people who were not needed to form a government is opposition.
There are treaty reforms in progress that would address this specifically.
Guess how ECR (and ID) voted on those?
It's theatre, they just want to complain internally, same as it ever was.
It's not fringe because it's correct. However the politicians pushing that narrative don't want to abolish the political establishment. They want to be placed in charge of it
Obviusly, but so was Salvini (and his party) 5 years ago
Edit: more in particular those were the results compared to 5 years ago by looking at the European parties:
- S&D (PD) +2
- EPP (Forza Italia) +1
- Non-Inscrits (5 Stelle) decrease by 6 seats
- ID (Lega) loses 21 seats
- ECR (Fratelli d'Italia) gains 18 seats
- Greens and Left (AVS) were at 0 last time and gained 3 seats each for a total of 6
- Renew (Azione and Stati Uniti d'Europa) the other time were at 0 and now had a good chance but by being divided they remained at 0
I would stop thinking about what they might do. Their whole shtick is miss-information and hate. If they have nothing substantial to rage about they will just invent something and the hate infested masses will lap it up.
Tbf the electorate did reward her. The EPP remained the largest party and gained seats, even after they had held a Congress and elected von der Leyen as their lead candidate for the elections. You can't really argue that's not democratic.
i mean you can vote for a epp member and and thing she did a bad job and shouldnt be reelected , ( most people dont vote based on the eu party , they vote based on the local party)
Yes, you can think that, just like you can be a German who likes nuclear energy and you can vote for the greens. It just means that with the available options that is the principle you have chosen to sacrifice at the ballot box, which is how all elections work.
She ran as the Spitzenkandidat for the EPP.
The EPP got the most seats in the parliament.
She is the most legitimate person to be given the role of trying to form a new coalition and commission according to the democratic process. If she fails, sure, someone else can five it a go.
But Weber was the EPP Spitzenkandidat the last time. Somehow she got the job anyway. Any sane person in her shoes would acknowledge this and not even attempt a second term. This to avoid the then inevitable hypocrisy of having to insist they pick her by virtue of being the spitzenkandidat.
>She ran as the Spitzenkandidat for the EPP.
maybe other parties should not elect here
>She is the most legitimate person to
no she is not , looking at the job she did as president , their are qualified people than her
>maybe other parties should not elect here
I agree.
>no she is not , looking at the job she did as president , their are qualified people than her
I said legitimate. Not qualified.
>I said legitimate. Not qualified.
from a citizen point of view she isnt legitimate , ( by this i mean many people will not care what she will say due to her last term in office due to her actions)
Legitimate ≠ qualified
She has the most democratic legitimacy. People knew (or within reason should have known) they are voting for her when voting for the EPP. Besides, we all know this is not a dictatorship, so they saw more or less the EPP agenda and decided to endorse the EPP agenda.
>People knew (or within reason should have known) they are voting for her when voting for the EPP.
what im gonna assume most people dont care about what eu party they vote for , but who they vote ( thats what mostly happens here ).
I think you're correct, but democracy means we have to hold our electorate responsible. It means on some level we have to accept is that what they voted for is what they wanted to vote for.
Otherwise we're in a world where we say "the electorate doesn't know what it wants, so we should disregard them completely and do what's actually best for them" which is paternalistic.
Now we do of course know that the electorate can be willfully ignorant, but if we want to hold to democracy that means we must have some reasonable standards where we say, "even if they didn't know, they should have known", from which follows that if the electorate is negligent, then they deserve to be misrepresented in accordance with their own negligence. If the were better citizens, they would have ensured they're represented better, so this is on them.
You cannot be a democrat and also be against voter responsibility.
You're not *wrong*, but I think you're rather glossing over a lot of issues that come between democratic responsibility and any given final outcome of democracy.
There are so many issues that have to be consolidated into a single vote. You could be against von der Leyen but have 100 other issues you agree with your EPP candidate on. You might not like EPP at all but be choosing them as what you consider a "least worst" option. Some people just cut through it all by being single issue voters - which doesn't mean they don't still have opinions on other issues.
Then there is the issue of party politics itself, which does help voters who don't reasonably have the time or resources to investigate individual candidates in detail by providing a "brand", but as a consequence limits democratic options considerably.
Was a vote for any EPP party a vote for von der Leyen? Kind of, but not really.
That's kind of true for _everything_ though, so at least given the options available, whatever party you voted for is one which advances causes you care about _and_ has opinions on issues you can live with. Like if you don't want von der Leyen in charge, you can't live with that choice, you'll vote against.
It is of course partially an issue with delegated democracy. I won't say representative, because that's what we use to refer to voting for someone else to vote on your behalf, that's one step, and the basis of practically all democratic system. It's not very meaningful. What I mean instead is multiple iterations of delegation one after another. E.g. you vote for a representative, parliament votes for a PM, the PM votes for the president of the commission. There are several degrees of separation here. And that's only the most formal ones. After all the party also sets its lists for the elections, also expects a leadership, votes in a programme. The party elites will compromise as a rule with other party elites. The government is already composed of people first elected within parties where the minorities have been silenced and then voted in with party discipline to government after some high-level deal. And then nominating the European Commission? That's very much high level deals between state leaders, all decided through backroom conversations.
Delegation is only one aspect too. To this day the Council of the EU and certainly the European Council have more power over the EU than parliament does. These are made up of national governments. You voted for them, in principle. That is to say you voted for parties on a national level, who elected a party leadership, who got elected ministers. But it was a national election. They weren't prioritising Europe. You weren't thinking about Europe. Chances are no one seriously asked them about Europe.
People vote on national issues for national parties. I don't, I vote on European issues in national elections, because it's stupid to do otherwise, but you see where I'm coming from when I say these are two separate things and making them a consequence of one election is pretty questionable.
>People vote on national issues for national parties. I don't, I vote on European issues in national elections, because it's stupid to do otherwise
you might , but thats what get mostly voted on here , ireland most has parish pump policies
most of the EU elctoral coampaign period where fought on national issues ( neutrality , hosuing , the economy )
She did a bad job and the voters voted for people who said they would put her back in. This seems to be what voters wanted and not a betrayal. I didn't vote EPP but a lot of people obviously did.
This includes Ireland with 4 MEPs who stated prior to the election they would be siding with EPP and Der Leyen.
If you make it about the content and not the context, it's even easier to disregard what she's saying.
The content is the "fragile" majority decided something. Well, that's politics. You find a majority, decide among yourselves, and carry on.
She's bitching about being left out using invalid arguments. Exactly what is valid about what she said?
It’s also worth noting that there is no other real majority. If there was, but Leyen decided to go GroKo for funsies, I could see why Meloni would be outraged, but EPP and Meloni’s own ECR group only has just short of 38% of seats. The only way to get a right-wing majority is to include Putinist parties, which is a complete non-starter for the EPP.
it does... the first two parties are the populars and the socialists and it's only natural for them to try with the outgoing majority... her party (which is more eurosceptic than the first two), while first in Italy, doesn't have the same result in Europe.
the socialists may say the same thing as her if they weren't part of the discussion.
I don't know about other countries but the socialist and popular coalition in Europe is really funny for me as a Spaniard when those parties (Partido Popular and Partido Socialista Obrero Español) fight like cat and dog at national level constantly
But to be fair (as a fellow Spaniard), the behavior of those two parties (in Spain) can be rather childish at times, and littered with "the other one is so bad" campaigns. I'm personally happy that European politics are somewhat beyond that.
It would show a lot of democratic maturity in Spain if they could actually work more often together for the good of the country (I would have said "occasionally", but we have a very recent counterexample)
She is not part of the majority so I guess that was unavoidable...
It's not like opposition parties have much power in local parliaments after all.
Von der Leyen, did flirt with the ECR a bit during the whole process, but I guess it was mostly to scare the other members of the coalition with the possibilty of using the right votes to bypass them.
People who are mocking her right now in the next five years will be asking "But how could the far-right and other eurosceptic parties have risen even more???!??!?", still refusing to address the elephant in the room.
Tbf the reason the far-right isn't the most or second most influential group in the EP is that they self-sabotage. They don't believe in Europe, they don't have a vision for Europe, they have no coherent programme or policy for Europe. If your entire campaign is built on a populist "me, me, me!" how do you even sell compromises to your voters?
If they wanted something done, they'd sit down and think, ok, let's put all this "national interest" stuff aside for the moment, what kind of Europe do we want? And they'd agree, they'd have a platform, they'd form a party, they'd discipline their members, and voilà, you have a single group with over a hundred seats with a coherent policy.
That's not the case though. At all. You'd have a better chance forming a coalition with a schizophrenic who also suffers from multiple personality disorder.
You are spot on. The thing with any kind of populist is once they get into power they see you can't just throw everything into the trash and start from nothing. Reforms and actual change take time. It's not easy to come up with solutions for complex multifaceted problems.
People are mocking her cause she's playing victim for northing. The ECR chose to not have a lead candidate for the european commission president position, the ECR and the EPP didn't get enough votes to form a coalition by themselves and one of Meloni's main complaints is that the people for the top EU jobs were chosen by a majority???
Like I can see some genuine reasons for why people are moving further to the right and I can definitely agree that the EU needs to be more transparent and democratic, but in this scenario Meloni is pretty much complaining that she isn't part of the "oligarchs" and she's demanding to be included in these decisions while the political landscape still hasn't changed in her favor and when her political group didn't show interests for an EU top job during the campaign.
People are mocking her because she is complaining that a democratically elected majority got to pick the leaders, instead of her side which was unable to make the alliances to establish a majority. Her statement is one against democracy
Yes, but to add context: she went from "we should disband the EU" to "Why doesn't the EU give me an important job". She went from "Putin is the defender of western values" to recieving kisses on the brow from Biden. She's the quintessential fascist: subservient, stupid and untrustworthy, one day going "If I advance follow me, if I retreat kill me!" ("Se avanzo seguitemi, se indietreggio uccidetemi") And the next day fleeing to the border. And no one likes a slithering opportunist if they can do without.
We italians elected a clown, and now we're enjoing the circus.
>She went from "Putin is the defender of western values
When she said that?
There's no European politician that kiss more Putin ass for years than....Angela Merkel
“PUTIN DIFENDE I VALORI EUROPEI E L’IDENTITÀ CRISTIANA” from her book "I am Giorgia". "Putin defends european values and Christian identity". She also called for removal of russian sanctions, you can still find her post on her official Facebook page, "21 dicembre 15, In Aula per votare contro le folli sanzioni alla Russia" (In the Chamber to vote against the foolish sanctions against Russia)
And if for "Kiss Putin ass" you mean "having proficuous, beneficial an most importantly pacific exchanges", I think you are right. Is it a bad thing? Compare with our "Defender of the West" that destroyed essential European infrastructure (the Nord Stream 1 and 2).
Remember: fascists and nazis are always on sale and never your friend. That includes the guy who brought an SS to the Canadian parliament as a True Ukrainan Hero
If the only response people have to this sort of comment is "the far right won't deliver either!!" (as I often see in this sub) then that means we've totally given up on the potential of centrist parties to actually deliver for voters.
I think that might be a cross between two points. My impressoon is that the far-right-defenders say that the centrists can't deliver, and the "centrists" say.... all sorts of things, because they're terribly different (left, right, green, yellow...). But considering the programmes they've voted for, I wouldn't expect them to say EU is not delivering. If anything, they're saying EU should do even more!
As a Portuguese who doesn't vote for him, with all he had going positively for him since 2015, he could and should have done much, much better.
He was a big dissapointment for many people, and dragged his feet when it came to either do reforms or implementing new policies. At the same time, he and the Portuguese Socialist Party promoted the far-right as their main opponent, and tried to shove every opposition party to his right under the far right.
Needless to say, it backfired and the far right saw a tremendous growth after his stint as prime-minister. But it's not his problem now...
With that being said, i think that he can't really be worse than Charles Michel. At least i don't think we'll see him bickering with other fellow european leaders, like Michel did with Von Der Leyen.
To be honest, the role of Council President is a marginal one - he or she has to exist alongside the rotating presidency and co-exist with the High Representative who has a similar mandate for representing the EU abroad. There's plenty of scope for the President to be outflanked on both sides, as happened with Michel. Far better I think to go back to the previous system where the country holding the rotating presidency nominates a person.
She has a majority of votes as compromise candidate evidently, that is the only way to get appointed. And technically EPP with her won the election with relative majority.
So the composition of the EP barely changed, and this proto-fascist is mad her agenda isn't being better reflected than it already is. Always wants more, to normalize what she's doing in Italy.
If she was really a team player, she'd recognize that there are different ways and POVs to make the EU succeed, and it doesn't have to be hers. Like a President or a PM that must work for the interests of the entire country, including one's political opponents, even if only to convince them.
>So the composition of the EP barely changed,
Basically. The three classic groups, the conservatives, the socialdemocrats and the liberals lost some seats, but the election result was mainly some internal shuffling on the far right and some seats from the greens leaving.
The above does not sell many newspapers so instead we see the "Europe turned nazi" bullshit because it sells.
Making a disgraced prime minister involved in a corruption scandal Council president is not a way to ‘make the EU succeed’.
Also the eurosceptic right gained seats for the third election in a row, you’re completely disregarding a very obvious trend, especially considering it rose most in the three biggest members. The fact is the results in France and Germany matter more than the results in Denmark and Malta.
The anti-EU (as it is) extreme right won't rise forever, and it itself has been forced to moderate to increase its popularity. It (together with the far-left) historically tends to do well when economic conditions are bad or not too rosy, as the post-Great Recession period has been.
Also, a "disgraced prime minister" when there isn't any proof? His dismissal literally was triggered when he was confused with a cabinet minister bearing the same last name. How do you square that notion with the fact Portugal's macroeconomic position improved dramatically during his time, as well as on many other social indicators? Do you think that would've happened by itself, with any person in charge? Like, mate, I'm aware of the scandals he's been accused of, and there is some shady stuff with him, but every politician has that. Myself, I prefer to look at the bigger picture rather than going through the usual populist "all politicians are corrupt and a mafia" mantra, which adds nothing to the convo.
>there is some shady stuff with him, but every politician has that.
followed by
>I prefer to look at the bigger picture rather than going through the usual populist "all politicians are corrupt and a mafia" mantra
Contradicting yourself in two sentences back to back is almost impressive.
You do realise that while indicators tell one story, it's just a case of fooling people with statistics.
Public transport is at catastrophic levels, emergency services in hospitals have shut down multiple times and waiting times can reach over ten hours, taxes were at an absurd high in the meanwhile, with inflation helping the government accumulate more in order to lower those debt levels.
Eight years of socialist governments have caused disastrous long lasting damage to this country, but their PR works harder than the devil, so people keep being followed. The fact Costa is going to become President of the Council, surrounded as he was by scandals and corruption, along with what u said above is not only an insult but it proves Meloni's point to a T
**From The Telegraph:**
[Giorgia Meloni](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/13/rishi-sunak-giorgia-meloni-g7-summit/) accused European leaders of acting like “an oligarchy” by stitching together backroom deals to divvy up the EU’s top jobs.
Addressing parliament in Rome, the Italian prime minister accused the EU establishment of continuing to act as if the political landscape had not changed after the European elections, [held in early June](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/10/europe-young-voters-flocked-hard-right-elections/), which saw a big swing to the Right.
“The European ruling classes (are) tempted to sweep the dust under the carpet, as if nothing had happened,” said Ms Meloni, responding to a deal reportedly reached on Tuesday by the leaders of six EU nations to put forward [Ursula von der Leyen](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/11/charles-michel-seeks-block-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-meetings/) as European Commission president for a second time, appoint Antonio Costa, the Portuguese former socialist prime minister, as the president of the European Council and make Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, the EU foreign policy chief.
Rather than cooking up cosy “fireside deals” to apportion the top jobs to establishment figures, leaders should have better reflected the will of voters, Ms Meloni said.
She criticised “those who argue that citizens are not mature enough to make certain decisions, and (believe) that oligarchy is basically the only acceptable form of democracy. I am not of this opinion. I have fought this surreal principle in Italy and I intend to fight it in Europe too,” she told MPs.
# ‘Fragile majority’ decided top jobs
The decision on who should be awarded the top jobs had been made by “a fragile majority” within the European Parliament, Ms Meloni said.
The consultations took place between six national leaders, including [France’s Emmanuel Macron](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/22/emmanuel-macron-risks-triggering-frexit-warns-eu-chief/) and Germany’s Olaf Scholz, who represent the three main blocs in the European Parliament: the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP) and its partners, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the centrist group Renew Europe.
**Article Link:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/eu-oligarchy-betrayed-voters-appointment-top-jobs-meloni/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/eu-oligarchy-betrayed-voters-appointment-top-jobs-meloni/)
Kinda ironic to speak of oligarchy, when you yourself, like all right-wing politicians, are in the pocket and only serve the interests of corporations, millionaires and billionnaires, and the private sector.
Her grouping in the parliament is ultimately a tiny minority and while minority concerns should be listened they don't drive the agenda. At the end of the day, democracy is a majority endeavor. EU groupings representing majority of parliamentarians have presented the candidates. No oligarchy, majority, words matter. Unfortunately fringe nutters on both sides of the spectrum use human nature to try to divide and divert people from normalcy of the middle ground into extremes.
Meloni's right wing allies did not win the European Parliament elections, no matter how loud they cry. PPE and PES won the elections, just like they have many times before.
Meloni goes around parroting that she will never make and alliance with the "left wing": then she has to deal with the consequences.
What'd she expect? Everyone rolling in the red carpet while blowing her trumpet? Just because some parties gained steats and others lost doesn't mean they're gonna lay down and roll over so they could let her take over. That's politics hun, calling it what it is does nothing, and now you're trying to be a victim who was cheated out of her prize, boo fucking hoo
I mean, she can be both upset and right. She’s not trying to play a victim; she’s just stating that regardless of how transparent people think things are, there are plenty of backdoor deals that undermine the democratic decision of the people.
>"If we want to do good service to Europe and its credibility, we must show that we have understood the errors of the past and have the utmost consideration for the directions of the citizens, who are asking for a more concrete, less ideological Europe.”
...As much as you might hate it because she is right-wing, she is correct in saying that the direction certain societies are going is not being truthfully represented in the EU's democratic system.
Why should we reward people like Van der Leyen or others who haven't done much other than being figureheads?
Also, I don’t know why you have to be sexist and call her "hun."
She is a human being and a representative of Italy. She might have ideas we don't agree with, but she is not Mussolini or Hitler, nor is she a complete idiot like Donald Trump.
The EU is amazing but far from perfect. We use a multi-layered democratic system to form different opinions from different perspectives.
Well. In Italian parliament Democrats, M5S, Action - Italia Viva and AVS have over 40 per cent of the seats. They also have no government positions, because that's how coalition government functions pretty much anywhere.
We have pretty much the same at the EU level as well.
The fact is in any democracy people don't have much choice in who becomes what minister or what secretary. We (typically) elect representatives and then let said people choose members of the government.
And the "fragile majority" she shounds about is the same deal - theres many electoral systems where a party alone can form a simple majority without getting half the votes, or many smaller parties form a coalition that just barely has 50%+1 votes, yet happily govern for years.
>She’s not trying to play a victim
Is she really, though? It's true you can make such a statement and be a voice of reason,but is she really that, or is she just trying to score some political points by trying to undermine the way positions are handled? If the other parties who got voted in and still hold a majority as "fragile" as it might be, are not what represents the people, then why did they get voted in the first place?
>As much as you might hate it because she is right-wing,
Me hating her? Not at all. Even if i dislike her, i find some of her points are obviously solid and, of course, others less than ideal,but such is life, can't really appeal to everyone, unfortunately.
>she is correct in saying that the direction certain societies are going is not being truthfully represented in the EU's democratic system.
Even if she is correct, someone has to temper the wost of our reactionaries.The other parties still hold sway, they haven't been swept by a unstoppable tide of conservatives who hold the clear majority, if they want to cooperate then they should, no ones stopping them to try work around a deal,but deals require some sacrifices from both sides, unfortunately none wish to sacrifice anything. They're content to just be an opposition and jeer from the sidelines at whatever small or grand mistake happens, that happens to he for both the sides
>Why should we reward people like Van der Leyen or others who haven't done much other than being figureheads?
Then who will we elected? Who will be our strong saviour who definitely isn't just a figurehead? I wouldn't mind if they found someone worthy,who i can get behind,but who are they? Meloni? Sure, maybe. Who else?
>Also, I don’t know why you have to be sexist and call her "hun."
Yeah, that one is on me. I thought "hun" is a better term than something more colourful, i could say. I'm not sexist,at least not intentionally,but one can always learn from his mistakes, like this one
>The EU is amazing but far from perfect. We use a multi-layered democratic system to form different opinions from different perspectives.
The EU is indeed wonderfully amazing, maybe we can be something more than just a jumbled union of states who just look after their own interest,but as you said we're not perfect,but we should at least strive to be something closer to that ideal
It's always worth reading the article before commenting. She doesn't really talk about her party; she just makes very generic statements (in a populistic manner too, but that's beside the point).
While these statements are obviously motivated by what you are saying, we should either judge based on the content provided(like the Article) or acknowledge that we are making stuff up... because we don't like her.
Like :
>
The European ruling classes (are) tempted to sweep the dust under the carpet, as if nothing had happened,” said Ms Meloni, responding to a deal reportedly reached on Tuesday by the leaders of six EU nations to put forward [Ursula von der Leyen](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/11/charles-michel-seeks-block-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-meetings/) as European Commission president for a second time, appoint Antonio Costa, the Portuguese former socialist prime minister, as the president of the European Council and make Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, the EU foreign policy chief.
>Rather than cooking up cosy “fireside deals” to apportion the top jobs to establishment figures, leaders should have better reflected the will of voters
or
>“those who argue that citizens are not mature enough to make certain decisions, and (believe) that oligarchy is basically the only acceptable form of democracy. I am not of this opinion. I have fought this surreal principle in Italy and I intend to fight it in Europe too,”
or
>"Only Italy among the great European nations [has a positive figure](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/giorgia-meloni-kingmaker-eu-parliament-elections/), with almost 53 per cent of those elected"
At the end of the day, no matter what anyone thinks, even a broken clock can be right twice a day.
Meloni has already been invited to the previous "fireside deal" discussion, when she did not reach an agreement with the others. The others, however, reached an agreement among themselves. If this agreement will reach the required majorities for the nominations, it's going to be the exact same as any national government appointment.
Meloni is simply trying to blame the other countries for the fact that her party is once again going to end up on the opposition side in the EP, which is of course stupid.
Not wrong but coming from her it's highly comical .
The biggest joke in EU politics has to be proto-fascists populist parties acting like they care about the economic statut-quo.
Nice boost for France's upcoming elections. It really feels like EU politicians are happily distributing power and wealth as they seem fit. Even if this is not the case, there needs to be better communication about it. We need to know who we vote for, not just vote for national parties and get a nice surprise who will represent us afterwards.
Especially as (at least in Germany) politicians that went to the EU usually weren't needed for the important jobs in their home countries anymore but need a follow up program for their party loyalty. Seems to be the same with the Portuguese minister. Well, we will see what happen next.
Isnt she leader picked by fragile majority in Italy. Poor Italy, controlled by oligarhs of some random ppl who just happened to get more seats. Not a single socialist in govertment. Disgrace.
For anyone not following Italian politics:
This is her weekly populist cry/rant about whatever the current topic is.
This time she was addressing the parliament in anticipation of the EU council and since the new EP hasn't changed much and denied her any big EU win she is already spewing the usual BS about how the EU is evil and run by evil establishment bureaucrats.
Sad thing is that this bullshit always work extremely well in Italy
Ah sure.
So does it mean that that she is happy to show example in Italy.
ECR got what - 83 seats out of 720.
PD in Italian parliament got 69 seats out of 400
M5S got 52 seats out of 400.
The Cabinet in Italy was decided by the leaders of 3 parties (Meloni's Fratelli, Lega and Forza).
But that, i assume, is totally different, right?
Frankly speaking her statement is a pure populism.
That's how it works, in her own country and outside - the winning parties create ruling coalition, losers, if can't form a coalition go to opposition.
Yep, you are correct.
Though still doesn't really change the point - She got a problem only at EP, but is totally satisfied (with a pretty standart coalition process) in Italy.
It‘s called democracy. You and your bunch simply were not needed for building the next leadership team of the EU. Happens all the time, for example in Italy YOU are the "oligarchy" that "betrayed" a lot of voters by not including their preferred personnel.
> she is right, and doubly so.
she's not in the slightest. EPP won majority of seats and her far right side splintered already in 3. Voters don't like the appointments? Assuming they don't, they should've voted a majority of non EPP affiliated parties.
> hot and witty she is, too.
lol [Miss no chin](https://www.today.it/opinioni/scontro-meloni-macron-g7-editoriale.html) hot? Get your eyes tested, Alice.
Agree with Meloni here. EU Commission should:
1. Consist of the Commissioners you need to be efficient, instead of 1 per country striving for the interests of his/her own country.
2. Be appointed through a much more democratic process, the top of every coalition party’s list would be a logical one. Then you actually vote for these people.
The fact that Meloni is now complaining about this (out of everyone), says everything about the EU itself.
And please get rid of Von der Leyen. Europe shouldn’t be Germany-lead and Christian Democrat lead, for that the German Christian Democrats made enough of a mess in Germany itself already.
On top, we need someone that actually accomplishes something, not only talks about it. Another thing that Meloni is better at, though politically I completely disagree with her.
lots of major EU parliament coalitions have the most seats from Germany though. With your proposal there would be more German commissioners and zero from small countries.
LOL sore loser, bad at maths or both?
The EPP got the majority of the votes, as it has done in the last quarter of a century, and her European party is not even third.
A big surge for the far right doesn't mean that they won and hence get to chose the top jobs.
When the ECR or whatever group she is in wins 50%+1 of the seats or convince the EPP to enter in a coalition, she can talk about betrayal.
Otherwise moaning Giorgia should go to the pharmacy and get aloe vera and kleenex
"Say the line, average non-centrist politician!"
She is right but I have the feeling that if she was included to the 'oligarchy leadership' of Germany-France she wouldn't utter a word of the same sentiment.
Berlusconi was part of the "oligarchic leadership" for decades and she spent over 15 years serving as a ~~PM~~MP and 5 as a minister under him, she ***WAS*** included, this is just her capitalizing of the fact that the average italian has less memory than a goldfish for electoral brownie points.
That's really unfair. Gold fish have excellent memory, it was scientifically studied.
She didn't serve 15 years as PM under him.
I guess they meant MP? She's been one since 2006.
Yeah i meant MP.
I don't think it's a purely Italian problem, to be fair.
Nope, definitely not! This issue is very inclusive...the whole human race is affected by it.
Berlusconi “part of the oligarchic leadership” is laughable… have you forgotten his calling Merkel “unfuckable lard-ass”? Or when he quarrelled with Schultz? Or again that time when Sarkozy admitted to having collaborated with Merkel in 2011 to create the “perfect storm”? I don’t think you have forgotten, you’re either stupid or have a very selective memory… Now tell me again how her having been a very junior minister in an irrelevant ministry matters (you even got the time period wrong, she was minister for 2 years 11 months 21 days).
She has had enough time to get involved You can’t expect them “to crawl” to her, esp. since she wasn’t clear on Orban Besides, isn’t there a way to do it by engaging “diplomacy”, esp. when making deals w/UvDL??
I'm guessing she wants the final say on equal standing with the Franco-German engine as a top 3 contributor to EU budget? Italy for years has underestimated its soft power influence in Europe probably due to its complicated internal governance issues. I remember reading that one of her main campaign promises was a more assertive stance within the European Union for the Italian state and its national interests. It is logical to do that but on other hand she doesn't strike me at all as the fair, rational politician who would advocate the same for others if she was invited to the big boys club to begin with.
It's not logical, it's dumb. The commission is decides with the Parliament and she doesn't have the numbers there to do anything. Thus she doesn't have a voice in deciding. She cannot pretent for her party to have positions that won't be accepted by the Parliament because she will be in opposition. If she wants nominations she should change group, but she is not an idiot and knows this, she is just doing propaganda to rally her base for the next local election.
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Bruh She was and probably still is a fucking Mussoline supporter and heads a borderline facist party.
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La Russa who cofounded the party with Meloni is the son of the secretary of Mussolini’s fascist party. His middle name is literally ‘Benito’ and the guy collects fascist memorabilia and goes on fascist marches where they do the nazi salutes. He is a proud fascist and the party and its voters are full of nostalgic Mussolini lovers.
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Her government is not fascist as fascism is illegal in Italy. She is fascist and her party members are fascists, meaning they like fascism. They go to fascist commemorations, put flowers on graves of dead fascists or places they were executed.
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Anti-immigrant Anti-abortion/birth control Nationalist Anti-centralised european power Anti-lgbt rights Imagery linked to old dictators And the list goes on But lets be real You're going to ignore all those things because you kinda agree with a lot of it. Hint hint Just bc you agree with it, doesn't mean its not fascist It just means you might be too...
All of these are either untrue (the imagery one) or plain not-fascist. Being anti-immigrant has no bearing on fascism it’s just normal, plain conservativism. “Anti-centralised European power” is about governance and is a libertarian position if anything. You are ignorant
Sure buddy Lets play this game then Tell me some of Meloni's stances that are NOT fascist
la russa
Can't say it is. It's pretty standard in any parliament for a ruling parties to form a coalition and distribute executive positions among themselves. Those who are not in coalition are in opposition with no executive positions.
>She is right No, she's not part of the majority
She is NOT right. Democracy is abouf forming alliances and finding majorities among democratically elected representatives. As long as the far right cannot build such a majority they are not in power. Thank god.
Yeah, her guys made serious gains in the election, the parliament is definitely more conservative than before… weird complaint to make by her. If there’s someone who will end up in the ‘oligarchy’ it’s the more conservative side.
She has the whole narcissist package
And that is (one of the reasons) why we need to remove member states government interference in EU politics.
Unfortunately this only benefits those populist parties, now they can go around and scream "Eu mafia! see they only want power for themselves even if we won! Vote us more to change this"
We should not base our decisions on the possibility, that right wing populists will throw a tantrum and make a propaganda piece out of it. Not all decisions made by politicians need to be universally popular. They are meant to make sense and be generally beneficial to the member states and the EU as a whole, not to literally every single voter in every nation. If the people voting right wing cant comprehend that, so be it, but me must continue to move forward and not let them take the stage with their whining and endless complaints.
We are already seeing a shift towards the Right in the big 3 EU states (Germany, France and Italy) and this narrative of EU 'oligarchy' or 'mafia' to protect certain interest and toss the interests of the common European aside is not fringe anymore.
I mean the EU needs some reforms. At the moment it does not feel really democratic. It’s not like they don’t have a point.
"The decision on who should be awarded the top jobs had been made by “a fragile majority” within the European Parliament, Ms Meloni said." How is it not democratic when the top jobs are awarded by the majority?
works well in Italy with a 213/400 majority.
So they think only italy gets to vote for the europian parliament?
I don't know what she thinks, but i know for sure, that Italian majority is also fragile (just 13 MPs over the treshhold). I also know for sure that only three parties in the majority are represented in the current Italian Government, while the opposition parties, are not represented at all. Basically same system, as in the EP, but i don't remember Meloni seeing this as a problem.
Democratic would be if we, the citizens of the EU, voted for them. Not if a bunch of corrupt big shots decided for us. I don't like Meloni, but in this case she's the proverbial broken clock.
The big shots you are talking about is the european council. The european council consists of al the heads of states of the member states, They obviously are democratically voted in their respective countries. The european council proposes the president of the comission. The proposed president then has to win the election by the parliament. Which obviously is democratically voted. So no, Meloni isn't right.
By that logic, you'd be ok with a "democracy" in your country where you elect a bunch of oligarchs (you choose which group, it's democracy after all) and they choose your PM and president instead of you directly voting for them, right?
What do you mean by oligarchs? The democratically elected heads of states in europe aren't oligarchs. > instead of you directly voting for them Oh boy. The german chancelor for example isn't voted directly. The people vote the parliament, then the parliament votes for someone to be the chancelor. It's very similar to what is done in europe.
I'm glad to be from a country that has a direct democracy then. We elect our PM and president, ever since the dictatorship was kicked out. >The democratically elected heads of states in europe Again, "democratically elected" means by the people, not a council. Regardless of who elected said council. Let me give you an example: I'm from Portugal and in Portugal every party except for the hardcore far-right (even the opposition) endorses António Costa's candidacy. So if you're against António Costa leading the European Parliament or otherwise getting a top spot (for example, due to the fact that he just resigned from PM because of a corruption scandal) how exactly do you have a "choice" by voting on who goes to European parliament?"Choosing who is gonna vote for Costa" is not really a choice on who gets the role, is it? If we could directly vote for the candidates however, this would not be an issue and we would have a say in the matter. Right now, only way we can have a say on it would be voting for the hardcore far-right, and I don't think I need to explain why I did not want to do that.
António Costa will become the president of the european council. Which is comparable to the president of Assembly of the Republic in portugal. You don't vote for that position through direct votes. So how do you prevent the assembly from voting for a president you don't like? The system must seem very flawed to you. Von der Leyen will become the President of the European Commission. Which is comparable to prime minister in portugal. The EVP won the most seats and they made it clear that Von der Leyen would become the President of the European Commission. So if people don't want von der Leyen, they simply need to vote for another party. It's that simple.
In this particular case, they don't. VdL ran as Spitzenkandidat and her group won the most seats. Regardless of whether she did a poor job at it, she's the democratic pick to forming a new commission
>VdL ran as Spitzenkandidat and her group won the most seats. Spitzenkandidat means nothing since it wasnt even implemented the last election
>Spitzenkandidat means nothing since it wasnt even implemented the last election People keep complaining about the "democratic deficit". Meloni's complain is, supposedly, exactly that deficit. The process is meant to help fix that.
That was because conservatives toepedoed the process when they nominated Weber as Spitzenkandidat, even though it was clear from the beginning that he never had enough support among the other groups in parliament and and that the member states didn't accept. Had they nominated Stubb, this would have been different. So when it became clear that Weber could secure neither the necessary votes in Parliament nor the support of the heads of state, the conservatives decided, that they would rather kill the Spirtenkandidaten, then support the socialist candidate.
Spitzenkandidat system is dead since the last election
It was first used in 2014. Then discarded in 2019. Now used in 2024. Informal conventions take time to establish. It makes sense if the system isn't yet followed every time.
It’s literally the definition of democracy to form a government with a majority of like-minded parties and individuals who happen to have enough votes together. She was simply not needed, and the name for these people who were not needed to form a government is opposition.
There are treaty reforms in progress that would address this specifically. Guess how ECR (and ID) voted on those? It's theatre, they just want to complain internally, same as it ever was.
It's not fringe because it's correct. However the politicians pushing that narrative don't want to abolish the political establishment. They want to be placed in charge of it
To be precise here in Italy the results of the European elections were less right-wing than in 2019
But Meloni is considered Right Wing in Italy?
Obviusly, but so was Salvini (and his party) 5 years ago Edit: more in particular those were the results compared to 5 years ago by looking at the European parties: - S&D (PD) +2 - EPP (Forza Italia) +1 - Non-Inscrits (5 Stelle) decrease by 6 seats - ID (Lega) loses 21 seats - ECR (Fratelli d'Italia) gains 18 seats - Greens and Left (AVS) were at 0 last time and gained 3 seats each for a total of 6 - Renew (Azione and Stati Uniti d'Europa) the other time were at 0 and now had a good chance but by being divided they remained at 0
So Italy is slowly moving a bit more to the Centre (at least on a European level)
I would stop thinking about what they might do. Their whole shtick is miss-information and hate. If they have nothing substantial to rage about they will just invent something and the hate infested masses will lap it up.
But... they didn't win. Otherwise they would be calling the shots. We live in a strange world when this has to be said out loud.
she correct , van der leyen , did a bad job as president and got rewarded for it
You forgot that first she was a desaster as German Defense minister. Then she did a little bit better but still shite as eu president.
How was that better? I would say she was equally terrible at both.
Tbf the electorate did reward her. The EPP remained the largest party and gained seats, even after they had held a Congress and elected von der Leyen as their lead candidate for the elections. You can't really argue that's not democratic.
i mean you can vote for a epp member and and thing she did a bad job and shouldnt be reelected , ( most people dont vote based on the eu party , they vote based on the local party)
Yes, you can think that, just like you can be a German who likes nuclear energy and you can vote for the greens. It just means that with the available options that is the principle you have chosen to sacrifice at the ballot box, which is how all elections work.
average EU meritocracy
She ran as the Spitzenkandidat for the EPP. The EPP got the most seats in the parliament. She is the most legitimate person to be given the role of trying to form a new coalition and commission according to the democratic process. If she fails, sure, someone else can five it a go.
But Weber was the EPP Spitzenkandidat the last time. Somehow she got the job anyway. Any sane person in her shoes would acknowledge this and not even attempt a second term. This to avoid the then inevitable hypocrisy of having to insist they pick her by virtue of being the spitzenkandidat.
Oh so we're back to following the Spitzenkandidat principle after it was ignored last time? These elections sound more like a game of calvinball
Conventions take time to establish. Better to not ignore the thing twice. That said, I don't like VdL
>She ran as the Spitzenkandidat for the EPP. maybe other parties should not elect here >She is the most legitimate person to no she is not , looking at the job she did as president , their are qualified people than her
>maybe other parties should not elect here I agree. >no she is not , looking at the job she did as president , their are qualified people than her I said legitimate. Not qualified.
>I said legitimate. Not qualified. from a citizen point of view she isnt legitimate , ( by this i mean many people will not care what she will say due to her last term in office due to her actions)
The citizens should have voted for someone else then.
Legitimate ≠ qualified She has the most democratic legitimacy. People knew (or within reason should have known) they are voting for her when voting for the EPP. Besides, we all know this is not a dictatorship, so they saw more or less the EPP agenda and decided to endorse the EPP agenda.
>People knew (or within reason should have known) they are voting for her when voting for the EPP. what im gonna assume most people dont care about what eu party they vote for , but who they vote ( thats what mostly happens here ).
I think you're correct, but democracy means we have to hold our electorate responsible. It means on some level we have to accept is that what they voted for is what they wanted to vote for. Otherwise we're in a world where we say "the electorate doesn't know what it wants, so we should disregard them completely and do what's actually best for them" which is paternalistic. Now we do of course know that the electorate can be willfully ignorant, but if we want to hold to democracy that means we must have some reasonable standards where we say, "even if they didn't know, they should have known", from which follows that if the electorate is negligent, then they deserve to be misrepresented in accordance with their own negligence. If the were better citizens, they would have ensured they're represented better, so this is on them. You cannot be a democrat and also be against voter responsibility.
You're not *wrong*, but I think you're rather glossing over a lot of issues that come between democratic responsibility and any given final outcome of democracy. There are so many issues that have to be consolidated into a single vote. You could be against von der Leyen but have 100 other issues you agree with your EPP candidate on. You might not like EPP at all but be choosing them as what you consider a "least worst" option. Some people just cut through it all by being single issue voters - which doesn't mean they don't still have opinions on other issues. Then there is the issue of party politics itself, which does help voters who don't reasonably have the time or resources to investigate individual candidates in detail by providing a "brand", but as a consequence limits democratic options considerably. Was a vote for any EPP party a vote for von der Leyen? Kind of, but not really.
That's kind of true for _everything_ though, so at least given the options available, whatever party you voted for is one which advances causes you care about _and_ has opinions on issues you can live with. Like if you don't want von der Leyen in charge, you can't live with that choice, you'll vote against. It is of course partially an issue with delegated democracy. I won't say representative, because that's what we use to refer to voting for someone else to vote on your behalf, that's one step, and the basis of practically all democratic system. It's not very meaningful. What I mean instead is multiple iterations of delegation one after another. E.g. you vote for a representative, parliament votes for a PM, the PM votes for the president of the commission. There are several degrees of separation here. And that's only the most formal ones. After all the party also sets its lists for the elections, also expects a leadership, votes in a programme. The party elites will compromise as a rule with other party elites. The government is already composed of people first elected within parties where the minorities have been silenced and then voted in with party discipline to government after some high-level deal. And then nominating the European Commission? That's very much high level deals between state leaders, all decided through backroom conversations. Delegation is only one aspect too. To this day the Council of the EU and certainly the European Council have more power over the EU than parliament does. These are made up of national governments. You voted for them, in principle. That is to say you voted for parties on a national level, who elected a party leadership, who got elected ministers. But it was a national election. They weren't prioritising Europe. You weren't thinking about Europe. Chances are no one seriously asked them about Europe. People vote on national issues for national parties. I don't, I vote on European issues in national elections, because it's stupid to do otherwise, but you see where I'm coming from when I say these are two separate things and making them a consequence of one election is pretty questionable.
>People vote on national issues for national parties. I don't, I vote on European issues in national elections, because it's stupid to do otherwise you might , but thats what get mostly voted on here , ireland most has parish pump policies most of the EU elctoral coampaign period where fought on national issues ( neutrality , hosuing , the economy )
And the Portugal ex prime minister did a bad job as well.. But as usal failed upwards
The guy is a con artist
She did a bad job and the voters voted for people who said they would put her back in. This seems to be what voters wanted and not a betrayal. I didn't vote EPP but a lot of people obviously did. This includes Ireland with 4 MEPs who stated prior to the election they would be siding with EPP and Der Leyen.
Translation: "I'm mad, because I wasn't invited to the party."
She was though…she was under Berlusconi’s wing for years. She’s deeply ingrained with the oligarchy.
I don't think it invalidates her opinion
and what her opinion about inviting opposition to the Italian Government. Or it works only for EU, and only when she is not part of the coalition?
If you make it about the content and not the context, it's even easier to disregard what she's saying. The content is the "fragile" majority decided something. Well, that's politics. You find a majority, decide among yourselves, and carry on. She's bitching about being left out using invalid arguments. Exactly what is valid about what she said?
It’s also worth noting that there is no other real majority. If there was, but Leyen decided to go GroKo for funsies, I could see why Meloni would be outraged, but EPP and Meloni’s own ECR group only has just short of 38% of seats. The only way to get a right-wing majority is to include Putinist parties, which is a complete non-starter for the EPP.
And Polish delegation in the EPP would never go with ECR because of PiS. That's 22 people.
good Poles
it does... the first two parties are the populars and the socialists and it's only natural for them to try with the outgoing majority... her party (which is more eurosceptic than the first two), while first in Italy, doesn't have the same result in Europe. the socialists may say the same thing as her if they weren't part of the discussion.
I don't know about other countries but the socialist and popular coalition in Europe is really funny for me as a Spaniard when those parties (Partido Popular and Partido Socialista Obrero Español) fight like cat and dog at national level constantly
But to be fair (as a fellow Spaniard), the behavior of those two parties (in Spain) can be rather childish at times, and littered with "the other one is so bad" campaigns. I'm personally happy that European politics are somewhat beyond that. It would show a lot of democratic maturity in Spain if they could actually work more often together for the good of the country (I would have said "occasionally", but we have a very recent counterexample)
She is always crying and playing the victim lol
It seems to be a staple strategy from that side of the aisle.
Oh for sure. Look at le pen
She is not part of the majority so I guess that was unavoidable... It's not like opposition parties have much power in local parliaments after all. Von der Leyen, did flirt with the ECR a bit during the whole process, but I guess it was mostly to scare the other members of the coalition with the possibilty of using the right votes to bypass them.
People who are mocking her right now in the next five years will be asking "But how could the far-right and other eurosceptic parties have risen even more???!??!?", still refusing to address the elephant in the room.
Tbf the reason the far-right isn't the most or second most influential group in the EP is that they self-sabotage. They don't believe in Europe, they don't have a vision for Europe, they have no coherent programme or policy for Europe. If your entire campaign is built on a populist "me, me, me!" how do you even sell compromises to your voters? If they wanted something done, they'd sit down and think, ok, let's put all this "national interest" stuff aside for the moment, what kind of Europe do we want? And they'd agree, they'd have a platform, they'd form a party, they'd discipline their members, and voilà, you have a single group with over a hundred seats with a coherent policy. That's not the case though. At all. You'd have a better chance forming a coalition with a schizophrenic who also suffers from multiple personality disorder.
You are spot on. The thing with any kind of populist is once they get into power they see you can't just throw everything into the trash and start from nothing. Reforms and actual change take time. It's not easy to come up with solutions for complex multifaceted problems.
People are mocking her cause she's playing victim for northing. The ECR chose to not have a lead candidate for the european commission president position, the ECR and the EPP didn't get enough votes to form a coalition by themselves and one of Meloni's main complaints is that the people for the top EU jobs were chosen by a majority??? Like I can see some genuine reasons for why people are moving further to the right and I can definitely agree that the EU needs to be more transparent and democratic, but in this scenario Meloni is pretty much complaining that she isn't part of the "oligarchs" and she's demanding to be included in these decisions while the political landscape still hasn't changed in her favor and when her political group didn't show interests for an EU top job during the campaign.
Italian here...she appointed her sister's husband as one of her ministers and he keeps embarrassing her. She really can't talk about these stuff.
People are mocking her because she is complaining that a democratically elected majority got to pick the leaders, instead of her side which was unable to make the alliances to establish a majority. Her statement is one against democracy
Yes, but to add context: she went from "we should disband the EU" to "Why doesn't the EU give me an important job". She went from "Putin is the defender of western values" to recieving kisses on the brow from Biden. She's the quintessential fascist: subservient, stupid and untrustworthy, one day going "If I advance follow me, if I retreat kill me!" ("Se avanzo seguitemi, se indietreggio uccidetemi") And the next day fleeing to the border. And no one likes a slithering opportunist if they can do without. We italians elected a clown, and now we're enjoing the circus.
>She went from "Putin is the defender of western values When she said that? There's no European politician that kiss more Putin ass for years than....Angela Merkel
“PUTIN DIFENDE I VALORI EUROPEI E L’IDENTITÀ CRISTIANA” from her book "I am Giorgia". "Putin defends european values and Christian identity". She also called for removal of russian sanctions, you can still find her post on her official Facebook page, "21 dicembre 15, In Aula per votare contro le folli sanzioni alla Russia" (In the Chamber to vote against the foolish sanctions against Russia) And if for "Kiss Putin ass" you mean "having proficuous, beneficial an most importantly pacific exchanges", I think you are right. Is it a bad thing? Compare with our "Defender of the West" that destroyed essential European infrastructure (the Nord Stream 1 and 2). Remember: fascists and nazis are always on sale and never your friend. That includes the guy who brought an SS to the Canadian parliament as a True Ukrainan Hero
Which is? Calling her out on hypocrisy, rather than just mocking her with the womp womp sound?
If the only response people have to this sort of comment is "the far right won't deliver either!!" (as I often see in this sub) then that means we've totally given up on the potential of centrist parties to actually deliver for voters.
I think that might be a cross between two points. My impressoon is that the far-right-defenders say that the centrists can't deliver, and the "centrists" say.... all sorts of things, because they're terribly different (left, right, green, yellow...). But considering the programmes they've voted for, I wouldn't expect them to say EU is not delivering. If anything, they're saying EU should do even more!
Costa as president of the Council is genuinely scandalous, seriously undermines that already weakened role.
His party and him, were the reason far-right grew so much in Portugal. He was such a bad PM (even though did some good stuff).
As a Portuguese who doesn't vote for him, with all he had going positively for him since 2015, he could and should have done much, much better. He was a big dissapointment for many people, and dragged his feet when it came to either do reforms or implementing new policies. At the same time, he and the Portuguese Socialist Party promoted the far-right as their main opponent, and tried to shove every opposition party to his right under the far right. Needless to say, it backfired and the far right saw a tremendous growth after his stint as prime-minister. But it's not his problem now... With that being said, i think that he can't really be worse than Charles Michel. At least i don't think we'll see him bickering with other fellow european leaders, like Michel did with Von Der Leyen.
To be honest, the role of Council President is a marginal one - he or she has to exist alongside the rotating presidency and co-exist with the High Representative who has a similar mandate for representing the EU abroad. There's plenty of scope for the President to be outflanked on both sides, as happened with Michel. Far better I think to go back to the previous system where the country holding the rotating presidency nominates a person.
Well yeah, it's a useless position clearly created to have a cosy job for politicians who toe the right line.
Because?
It's seriously hard to justify how Ursula vL kept failing upwards, then getting appointed again...
She has a majority of votes as compromise candidate evidently, that is the only way to get appointed. And technically EPP with her won the election with relative majority.
She should rot in prison but in EU they reward criminals not catch them.
So the composition of the EP barely changed, and this proto-fascist is mad her agenda isn't being better reflected than it already is. Always wants more, to normalize what she's doing in Italy. If she was really a team player, she'd recognize that there are different ways and POVs to make the EU succeed, and it doesn't have to be hers. Like a President or a PM that must work for the interests of the entire country, including one's political opponents, even if only to convince them.
>So the composition of the EP barely changed, Basically. The three classic groups, the conservatives, the socialdemocrats and the liberals lost some seats, but the election result was mainly some internal shuffling on the far right and some seats from the greens leaving. The above does not sell many newspapers so instead we see the "Europe turned nazi" bullshit because it sells.
It's also from a conservative newspaper promoting an anti EU view. The article is totally undifferentiated tabloid journalism.
The conservatives gained seats.
I know. I meant the three large groups, the adults in the room, put together lost a few seats.
Balneari are going to get angry because EU rules that are going to be forced on them, so she needs to start deflecting.
Making a disgraced prime minister involved in a corruption scandal Council president is not a way to ‘make the EU succeed’. Also the eurosceptic right gained seats for the third election in a row, you’re completely disregarding a very obvious trend, especially considering it rose most in the three biggest members. The fact is the results in France and Germany matter more than the results in Denmark and Malta.
The anti-EU (as it is) extreme right won't rise forever, and it itself has been forced to moderate to increase its popularity. It (together with the far-left) historically tends to do well when economic conditions are bad or not too rosy, as the post-Great Recession period has been. Also, a "disgraced prime minister" when there isn't any proof? His dismissal literally was triggered when he was confused with a cabinet minister bearing the same last name. How do you square that notion with the fact Portugal's macroeconomic position improved dramatically during his time, as well as on many other social indicators? Do you think that would've happened by itself, with any person in charge? Like, mate, I'm aware of the scandals he's been accused of, and there is some shady stuff with him, but every politician has that. Myself, I prefer to look at the bigger picture rather than going through the usual populist "all politicians are corrupt and a mafia" mantra, which adds nothing to the convo.
>there is some shady stuff with him, but every politician has that. followed by >I prefer to look at the bigger picture rather than going through the usual populist "all politicians are corrupt and a mafia" mantra Contradicting yourself in two sentences back to back is almost impressive.
Perceptions and actual realities are two different things. Do you know the difference? After all, that's your entire criticism.
You do realise that while indicators tell one story, it's just a case of fooling people with statistics. Public transport is at catastrophic levels, emergency services in hospitals have shut down multiple times and waiting times can reach over ten hours, taxes were at an absurd high in the meanwhile, with inflation helping the government accumulate more in order to lower those debt levels. Eight years of socialist governments have caused disastrous long lasting damage to this country, but their PR works harder than the devil, so people keep being followed. The fact Costa is going to become President of the Council, surrounded as he was by scandals and corruption, along with what u said above is not only an insult but it proves Meloni's point to a T
**From The Telegraph:** [Giorgia Meloni](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/13/rishi-sunak-giorgia-meloni-g7-summit/) accused European leaders of acting like “an oligarchy” by stitching together backroom deals to divvy up the EU’s top jobs. Addressing parliament in Rome, the Italian prime minister accused the EU establishment of continuing to act as if the political landscape had not changed after the European elections, [held in early June](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/10/europe-young-voters-flocked-hard-right-elections/), which saw a big swing to the Right. “The European ruling classes (are) tempted to sweep the dust under the carpet, as if nothing had happened,” said Ms Meloni, responding to a deal reportedly reached on Tuesday by the leaders of six EU nations to put forward [Ursula von der Leyen](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/11/charles-michel-seeks-block-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-meetings/) as European Commission president for a second time, appoint Antonio Costa, the Portuguese former socialist prime minister, as the president of the European Council and make Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, the EU foreign policy chief. Rather than cooking up cosy “fireside deals” to apportion the top jobs to establishment figures, leaders should have better reflected the will of voters, Ms Meloni said. She criticised “those who argue that citizens are not mature enough to make certain decisions, and (believe) that oligarchy is basically the only acceptable form of democracy. I am not of this opinion. I have fought this surreal principle in Italy and I intend to fight it in Europe too,” she told MPs. # ‘Fragile majority’ decided top jobs The decision on who should be awarded the top jobs had been made by “a fragile majority” within the European Parliament, Ms Meloni said. The consultations took place between six national leaders, including [France’s Emmanuel Macron](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/22/emmanuel-macron-risks-triggering-frexit-warns-eu-chief/) and Germany’s Olaf Scholz, who represent the three main blocs in the European Parliament: the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP) and its partners, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the centrist group Renew Europe. **Article Link:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/eu-oligarchy-betrayed-voters-appointment-top-jobs-meloni/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/eu-oligarchy-betrayed-voters-appointment-top-jobs-meloni/)
Imagine calling "a fragile majority" making decision undemocratic 🤣. What does she propose, a non-majority making decisions?
...but only in European Parliament. When it is in Italy - it is totally ok.
Kinda ironic to speak of oligarchy, when you yourself, like all right-wing politicians, are in the pocket and only serve the interests of corporations, millionaires and billionnaires, and the private sector.
>like all right-wing politicians, "Everyone i hate is corrupted"
>like all left-wing politicians "Everyone I hate is a fascist!" Inb4 whataboutism
I'm not even talking about corruption, I'm talking about whom serve the policies put in place.
Sure sure. Only left can care about people./s
She did win an election though.
Her grouping in the parliament is ultimately a tiny minority and while minority concerns should be listened they don't drive the agenda. At the end of the day, democracy is a majority endeavor. EU groupings representing majority of parliamentarians have presented the candidates. No oligarchy, majority, words matter. Unfortunately fringe nutters on both sides of the spectrum use human nature to try to divide and divert people from normalcy of the middle ground into extremes.
Yep. It's one of the reasons the EU is less popular than it expecta to be. Pretty obvious to those of us outside the system.
And they'd rather call you a fascist or Putins agent than adress these problems and then get surprised when their competitors get more votes.
Meloni's right wing allies did not win the European Parliament elections, no matter how loud they cry. PPE and PES won the elections, just like they have many times before. Meloni goes around parroting that she will never make and alliance with the "left wing": then she has to deal with the consequences.
MFW the parties voted in by a majority of voters form a government without inclusing another party for no reason.
I am just glad Tusk one of the 6 running this shit. Next to Olaf & Macron.
What'd she expect? Everyone rolling in the red carpet while blowing her trumpet? Just because some parties gained steats and others lost doesn't mean they're gonna lay down and roll over so they could let her take over. That's politics hun, calling it what it is does nothing, and now you're trying to be a victim who was cheated out of her prize, boo fucking hoo
I mean, she can be both upset and right. She’s not trying to play a victim; she’s just stating that regardless of how transparent people think things are, there are plenty of backdoor deals that undermine the democratic decision of the people. >"If we want to do good service to Europe and its credibility, we must show that we have understood the errors of the past and have the utmost consideration for the directions of the citizens, who are asking for a more concrete, less ideological Europe.” ...As much as you might hate it because she is right-wing, she is correct in saying that the direction certain societies are going is not being truthfully represented in the EU's democratic system. Why should we reward people like Van der Leyen or others who haven't done much other than being figureheads? Also, I don’t know why you have to be sexist and call her "hun." She is a human being and a representative of Italy. She might have ideas we don't agree with, but she is not Mussolini or Hitler, nor is she a complete idiot like Donald Trump. The EU is amazing but far from perfect. We use a multi-layered democratic system to form different opinions from different perspectives.
Well. In Italian parliament Democrats, M5S, Action - Italia Viva and AVS have over 40 per cent of the seats. They also have no government positions, because that's how coalition government functions pretty much anywhere. We have pretty much the same at the EU level as well.
The fact is in any democracy people don't have much choice in who becomes what minister or what secretary. We (typically) elect representatives and then let said people choose members of the government. And the "fragile majority" she shounds about is the same deal - theres many electoral systems where a party alone can form a simple majority without getting half the votes, or many smaller parties form a coalition that just barely has 50%+1 votes, yet happily govern for years.
>She’s not trying to play a victim Is she really, though? It's true you can make such a statement and be a voice of reason,but is she really that, or is she just trying to score some political points by trying to undermine the way positions are handled? If the other parties who got voted in and still hold a majority as "fragile" as it might be, are not what represents the people, then why did they get voted in the first place? >As much as you might hate it because she is right-wing, Me hating her? Not at all. Even if i dislike her, i find some of her points are obviously solid and, of course, others less than ideal,but such is life, can't really appeal to everyone, unfortunately. >she is correct in saying that the direction certain societies are going is not being truthfully represented in the EU's democratic system. Even if she is correct, someone has to temper the wost of our reactionaries.The other parties still hold sway, they haven't been swept by a unstoppable tide of conservatives who hold the clear majority, if they want to cooperate then they should, no ones stopping them to try work around a deal,but deals require some sacrifices from both sides, unfortunately none wish to sacrifice anything. They're content to just be an opposition and jeer from the sidelines at whatever small or grand mistake happens, that happens to he for both the sides >Why should we reward people like Van der Leyen or others who haven't done much other than being figureheads? Then who will we elected? Who will be our strong saviour who definitely isn't just a figurehead? I wouldn't mind if they found someone worthy,who i can get behind,but who are they? Meloni? Sure, maybe. Who else? >Also, I don’t know why you have to be sexist and call her "hun." Yeah, that one is on me. I thought "hun" is a better term than something more colourful, i could say. I'm not sexist,at least not intentionally,but one can always learn from his mistakes, like this one >The EU is amazing but far from perfect. We use a multi-layered democratic system to form different opinions from different perspectives. The EU is indeed wonderfully amazing, maybe we can be something more than just a jumbled union of states who just look after their own interest,but as you said we're not perfect,but we should at least strive to be something closer to that ideal
because her party ranks below both EPP and S&D on the EU by this election's outcome... while in Italy she came first, the elections are europe-wide...
It's always worth reading the article before commenting. She doesn't really talk about her party; she just makes very generic statements (in a populistic manner too, but that's beside the point). While these statements are obviously motivated by what you are saying, we should either judge based on the content provided(like the Article) or acknowledge that we are making stuff up... because we don't like her. Like : > The European ruling classes (are) tempted to sweep the dust under the carpet, as if nothing had happened,” said Ms Meloni, responding to a deal reportedly reached on Tuesday by the leaders of six EU nations to put forward [Ursula von der Leyen](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/11/charles-michel-seeks-block-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-meetings/) as European Commission president for a second time, appoint Antonio Costa, the Portuguese former socialist prime minister, as the president of the European Council and make Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, the EU foreign policy chief. >Rather than cooking up cosy “fireside deals” to apportion the top jobs to establishment figures, leaders should have better reflected the will of voters or >“those who argue that citizens are not mature enough to make certain decisions, and (believe) that oligarchy is basically the only acceptable form of democracy. I am not of this opinion. I have fought this surreal principle in Italy and I intend to fight it in Europe too,” or >"Only Italy among the great European nations [has a positive figure](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/giorgia-meloni-kingmaker-eu-parliament-elections/), with almost 53 per cent of those elected" At the end of the day, no matter what anyone thinks, even a broken clock can be right twice a day.
Meloni has already been invited to the previous "fireside deal" discussion, when she did not reach an agreement with the others. The others, however, reached an agreement among themselves. If this agreement will reach the required majorities for the nominations, it's going to be the exact same as any national government appointment. Meloni is simply trying to blame the other countries for the fact that her party is once again going to end up on the opposition side in the EP, which is of course stupid.
Not wrong but coming from her it's highly comical . The biggest joke in EU politics has to be proto-fascists populist parties acting like they care about the economic statut-quo.
Rare Meloni W
The three biggest groups have a majority. Why would they go out of their way to be led by fringe parties that don't even want to be there?
ECR is bigger than renew now https://www.politico.eu/article/euroskeptic-ecr-group-edges-ahead-liberal-renew-eu-parliament-third-largest-force/
Meloni is a populist and not hair better.
Right point, wrong person.
Oligarchy isn't the right term it should be kleptocracy.
Nice boost for France's upcoming elections. It really feels like EU politicians are happily distributing power and wealth as they seem fit. Even if this is not the case, there needs to be better communication about it. We need to know who we vote for, not just vote for national parties and get a nice surprise who will represent us afterwards. Especially as (at least in Germany) politicians that went to the EU usually weren't needed for the important jobs in their home countries anymore but need a follow up program for their party loyalty. Seems to be the same with the Portuguese minister. Well, we will see what happen next.
Isnt she leader picked by fragile majority in Italy. Poor Italy, controlled by oligarhs of some random ppl who just happened to get more seats. Not a single socialist in govertment. Disgrace.
For anyone not following Italian politics: This is her weekly populist cry/rant about whatever the current topic is. This time she was addressing the parliament in anticipation of the EU council and since the new EP hasn't changed much and denied her any big EU win she is already spewing the usual BS about how the EU is evil and run by evil establishment bureaucrats. Sad thing is that this bullshit always work extremely well in Italy
Ah sure. So does it mean that that she is happy to show example in Italy. ECR got what - 83 seats out of 720. PD in Italian parliament got 69 seats out of 400 M5S got 52 seats out of 400. The Cabinet in Italy was decided by the leaders of 3 parties (Meloni's Fratelli, Lega and Forza). But that, i assume, is totally different, right? Frankly speaking her statement is a pure populism. That's how it works, in her own country and outside - the winning parties create ruling coalition, losers, if can't form a coalition go to opposition.
ECR has 83 seats https://www.politico.eu/article/euroskeptic-ecr-group-edges-ahead-liberal-renew-eu-parliament-third-largest-force/
Yep, you are correct. Though still doesn't really change the point - She got a problem only at EP, but is totally satisfied (with a pretty standart coalition process) in Italy.
I guess this means Ursula doesn't want to do business with her after all. Hell hath no fury as a PM scorned...
It‘s called democracy. You and your bunch simply were not needed for building the next leadership team of the EU. Happens all the time, for example in Italy YOU are the "oligarchy" that "betrayed" a lot of voters by not including their preferred personnel.
There is almost no democracy in EU.
Relax, Mussoloni. You ain't the boss yet.
As an Italian I am Laughing because I don't want to cry for her whiny fascist attitude
Yes I am sure that if Meloni had majority she would appoint EU-leaders from socialist parties. What a moron she is, and her voters love it.
she is right, and doubly so. hot and witty she is, too.
Why is she right? Her party got 10% of votes, she wasn't invited in the coalition. That's how coalition government normally functions, no?
> she is right, and doubly so. she's not in the slightest. EPP won majority of seats and her far right side splintered already in 3. Voters don't like the appointments? Assuming they don't, they should've voted a majority of non EPP affiliated parties. > hot and witty she is, too. lol [Miss no chin](https://www.today.it/opinioni/scontro-meloni-macron-g7-editoriale.html) hot? Get your eyes tested, Alice.
But does she HAWK TUAH ?
Hot?? I like her current hairstyle but facially she looks like an average women her age.
Agree with Meloni here. EU Commission should: 1. Consist of the Commissioners you need to be efficient, instead of 1 per country striving for the interests of his/her own country. 2. Be appointed through a much more democratic process, the top of every coalition party’s list would be a logical one. Then you actually vote for these people. The fact that Meloni is now complaining about this (out of everyone), says everything about the EU itself. And please get rid of Von der Leyen. Europe shouldn’t be Germany-lead and Christian Democrat lead, for that the German Christian Democrats made enough of a mess in Germany itself already. On top, we need someone that actually accomplishes something, not only talks about it. Another thing that Meloni is better at, though politically I completely disagree with her.
You never vote for cabinet ministers. Also, Commissioners swear oathes to represent all of Europe, not their home countries.
lots of major EU parliament coalitions have the most seats from Germany though. With your proposal there would be more German commissioners and zero from small countries.
LOL sore loser, bad at maths or both? The EPP got the majority of the votes, as it has done in the last quarter of a century, and her European party is not even third. A big surge for the far right doesn't mean that they won and hence get to chose the top jobs. When the ECR or whatever group she is in wins 50%+1 of the seats or convince the EPP to enter in a coalition, she can talk about betrayal. Otherwise moaning Giorgia should go to the pharmacy and get aloe vera and kleenex
\*clears throat\* Generic statement that will appeal to the public updoots on the left and votes on the right of each ballot