Berlusconi wants EPP to form alliance with far right
7371 Min Read
Silvio Berlusconi has joined Hungary’s Viktor Orban in calling on Europe’s conservatives to form an alliance with the far right.
Italy’s ex-prime minister is running for a seat in this month’s European Parliament election for his Forza Italia party, which is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), the EU’s center-right bloc.
Speaking on Italian television, Berlusconi said the EPP should abandon its long-standing informal coalition with the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Parliament’s second-largest bloc.
Later, he tweeted: “The EPP must leave the alliance with the Socialists and turn to the right, to the conservatives and the nationalists. I am convinced that even Orban and [Matteo] Salvini” — the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League party — “can enter this alliance to transform Europe into a Europe for growth.”
Il #PPE deve lasciare l'alleanza con i socialisti e volgersi a destra, ai conservatori e nazionalisti. Sono convinto che anche #Orban e #Salvini possano entrare in questa alleanza per trasformare l'#Europa in una Europa dello sviluppo.
Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, whose Fidesz party was suspended from the EPP over rule-of-law concerns earlier this year, has called for the center-right bloc to join Salvini’s new far-right alliance. Orban also withdrew his support for Manfred Weber, the EPP’s lead candidate for Commission president, this week.
According to POLITICO’s projections, Forza Italia is on track to win seven of Italy’s 73 seats in the European Parliament, down from 13 seats in the last election in 2014.
