Yet again, the Orbán government’s measures receive bad press.Continue reading
European People’s Party President Manfred Weber has been called to account by Five Star Movement MEP Laura Ferrara, who says Weber should explain why he sold out the identity and values of the center-right of the EU to the far-right by backing an “Orbán-driven coalition” in the Italian elections, Euractiv reported.
Italy will hold early elections in September, with the biggest chance of winning the elections being a right-wing coalition of three parties: the Brothers of Italy led by Giorgia Meloni, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and the Lega, which is linked to Matteo Salvini. The Brothers of Italy has the largest support among the three parties, and under the terms of the agreement between them, from this party the next prime minister of the country could emerge, and it could be Giorgia Meloni.
The increasingly likely right-wing advance in Italy has raised eyebrows, and this is also why Laura Ferrara has lashed out at Manfred Weber. The centrist Five Star Movement MEP says the EPP president must explain why he is allowing openly Eurosceptic voices within the founding fathers’ party family to take center stage.
Although neither the Brothers of Italy nor the Lega are members of the EPP, the Berlusconi-led Forza Italia is. Ferrara has described it as a “crutch” of the far right, with only 19 percent of the seats for themselves, compared to 76 percent for the other two parties.
This Orbán-driven center-right is a disaster for future European integration policies, and the responsibility clearly lies with Weber who has endorsed, even putting his face on it, these political choices,”
Ferrara stated.
Manfred Weber was in Rome this week, where he expressed his support for Forza Italia. Weber said the agenda of the right-wing coalition is a “clear guarantee” for Europe, and highlighted the difference between Poland and Hungary, which only have far-right governments, Euractiv reports.
It is clear that the European left does not want to accept that Italy, one of the largest and most influential EU Member States, could soon have a right-wing leadership and could follow the footsteps of the Hungarian government in some measures.
For this very reason, various media portals and politicians are doing their best to smear the Italian right, or even the larger Hungarian governing party, Fidesz. The reason is that Giorgia Meloni and his party are allies of Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán, which is also difficult for mainstream European politics to accept.
As Hungary Today reported earlier, an article was recently published in La Repubblica, which has drawn false conclusions from a new Hungarian report and the country’s family policies in general. Protecting the traditional family has become a losing battle, Italian daily La Repubblica claimed in the article, referring to statistical data which shows that the ratio of traditional families in Italy is only 33 percent. The article reflects several common misconceptions about Hungary’s family policies- not at all surprising given the fact that soon another major skeptical voice could rise in the European Union which could make it harder to pass leftist and liberal ideologies on Member States.
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