Several figures from European politics – including French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini – met yesterday in northern Italy at a political meeting held with the aim of supporting the election process. to renew the European Parliament (EP) from 2024.
“This year we are engaged in the same fight, for our freedoms, our people, our homelands,” said Le Pen in Pontidia, in northern Italy, together with Salvini, whose respective parties make up the right-wing nationalist and euroskeptic bloc of the EP. .
In this alliance of political forces, the Identity and Democracy Party maintains that the EU has exceeded its powers over the years, and that Europe is losing its cultural and religious identity with the continuous arrival of immigrants, especially illegal ones from from Africa and Asia.
The issue is particularly pressing in Italy, where tens of thousands of migrants have already arrived this year crossing the Mediterranean Sea in precarious boats from North African countries such as Libya and Tunisia, including 7,000 taken in a single day last week. to the overflowing and southern island of Lampedusa.
Salvini has several times described this as an “invasion” of migrants and accused the EU of being responsible, and has also been particularly critical of a decision this year by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission, to ban the sale of motors. internal combustion from 2035.
“We do not want them to continue imposing policies on us that we have not chosen,” such as the “crazy ban” on the sale of combustion engines from 2035 adopted this year by the EU, said Salvini, leader of the League party, at the event in Pontidia. .
“We defend our traditions, our gastronomies, our identities (…) we defend our people in the face of migratory submergence,” added Le Pen, reported the AFP news agency. The political alliance between Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party (RN) and Salvini seems unbreakable for a decade, and also demonstrates the strength of their personal relationship.
“If we have to choose in Europe between (French President Emmanuel) Macron and Marine Le Pen, I have no doubts, Marine Le Pen forever,” declared the deputy prime minister of the Government of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Returning to the issue of immigration, he assured that Italy will do “everything democratically permissible” and use “all necessary means” to “block an invasion.” The Identity and Democracy Party controls 61 of the 705 seats in the EP. Most of them are in the hands of members of the RN, the League and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The elections to renew the EP will be held between June 6 and 9, 2024. Based on the results of the elections, the EP elects the president of the European Commission, which is the highest authority of the bloc. The last European elections were held in 2019.
Source: Ambito
