Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will find out today if her party’s lawmakers are barred from securing high-level posts in the European Parliament by pro-EU political groups.
Newly elected Brothers of Italy MEP Antonella Sberna is running for the vice-presidency of the European Parliament in a vote to be held this afternoon in Strasbourg. Sberna, a former civil servant in the Italian Parliament, formerly interned at the European Parliament in 2005 with the European People’s Party (EPP) grouping.
This is the first time Italy’s main ruling party has ever sought a top parliamentary job—something strategically avoided in the past to steer clear of the so-called ‘cordon sanitaire’, the practice by which the centrist pro-European groups effectively club together to deny the right-wing fringe top jobs in the institution. This practice has historically excluded lawmakers from far-right parties such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, and Matteo Salvini’s Lega from power roles in the parliament.
Within the conservative group (ECR), only Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) has been subjected to the cordon sanitaire, while other delegations, such as Belgium’s NVA, Latvia’s National Alliance, or former group member Spain’s Vox, have seen some of their MEPs elected to positions of responsibility.
Today’s vote will provide an answer to the outstanding question of whether the cordon sanitaire applies to Brothers of Italy. If Sberna’s bid is successful, that will signal Meloni’s party is allowed to participate in power-sharing; if she does not, that would compromise the party’s cooperation with the political families that govern the EU.
Giorgia Meloni has previously lamented her exclusion and a lack of consultation in other top job races, which last month led to the appointments of the next EU executive and European Council presidents, as well as the EU’s foreign affairs chief.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been meeting MEPs in a bid to shore up support in advance of Thursday’s confirmation vote on her reappointment, has repeatedly said she will not engage in “structural cooperation” with the right-wing ECR grouping. The pledge was most recently made at a meeting with The Left grouping yesterday and to the liberals just last week. What it means in substance is unclear, however, since it leaves the door open to ‘unstructured’ cooperation, whatever that might mean.
Attempts by the ECR to build bridges with the centre-right EPP grouping have already begun, starting with the informal talks that led to the swap of the chairmanship of two parliamentary committees. Conservatives initially sought the presidency of the Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee in the parliament’s first allotment of top jobs, but this was resisted by socialist and liberal MEPs.
The EPP then came to the ECR’s rescue agreeing to transfer the less controversial but equally powerful Parliament’s Agriculture (AGRI) committee presidency to conservatives.
As a further sign of goodwill, ECR has expressed support for Roberta Metsola’s bid to be re-elected as European Parliament president. “She is able to build bridges and find common ground across political camps,” said Nicola Procaccini, ECR group chair and the most prominent figure of Brothers of Italy in Strasbourg, who also praised Metsola’s commitment to dialogue, balance, and compromise.