Italy’s PM Meloni warns of ‘super-State’ of Europe

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Wednesday that voters in upcoming European elections would be choosing between a “hyper-centralised bureaucratic super-State” and a “confederation” in which nations are given more individual powers.

“We are on the eve of a decisive vote, in which citizens will be asked to choose between two models of Europe,” said Meloni in a message sent to a conservative research centre holding a conference on Europe in Rome.

One model, said the far-right premier, was that of “a hyper-centralised bureaucratic super-State, enemy of national specificities.”

The other was “a confederation of sovereign Nations, united on major issues but free to address issues of strict national relevance.”

Meloni cast the former as “an arrogant and invasive Europe, contrary to the freedom of its citizens.”

“We do not want a Europe that claims to dictate to us what we should eat, what car to drive, how to renovate our homes, what clothes to wear and maybe even how to write and think.”

On the European stage, Meloni is pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine, but at home she has pursued a nationalist populist agenda focused on traditional family values, law and order, and opposition to illegal immigration.

At less than a month before European elections held on June 8-9, Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party largely dominates in the polls at approximately 27 percent.

In the European Parliament, Brothers of Italy heads the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which includes Spain’s Vox, Poland’s populist Law and Justice (PiS), and France’s Reconquete. Meloni’s party will compete against its coalition partners — the far-right League under Matteo Salvini, and right-leaning Forza Italia founded by former premier Silvio Berlusconi.