Summary
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called for an “immediate” summit between the US, EU, and Western allies to discuss Ukraine following a heated White House meeting between Trump and President Zelenskyy.
The February 28 meeting ended without agreement on a minerals deal after escalating into a confrontation over US aid and peace deal conditions.
Meloni warned that Western division “makes us all weaker” as European leaders reaffirmed support for Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas commented that “the free world needs a new leader,” while European allies worry about being excluded from US-Russia negotiations to end the war.
No, I think they had ideas. In Italy at least the ideological pillars were quite clear and are the same as they were 100 years ago. Support to industrial class (capital) was a constant and still is. Militarism, religion in politics, nationalism, racial discrimination, anticommunism etc. also. In general I agree that fascism is not an ideology as much as a way to conduct politics. But Italian fascists did not evolve or change in the last century. Maybe we can discuss how nationalism became atlantism (because anticommunism prevailed), but apart from that, I see quite a lot of stability in those ideas.
None of these things were a mussolini constant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avanti!_(newspaper)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Islam_(Mussolini)
I am aware of my own country’s history. Socialist roots of Mussolini contributed to the ideological foundation of fascism, and some of these roots are somewhat visible and remained until today in neofascist parties. For example, looking at how Forza Nuova and Casapound have deep roots in more proletarian suburbs and operated things like food delivery to poor people (only Italians, of course). The appeal to lower class while ultimately making the interests of capital is one of the reasons fascism is a hard disease to get rid of in Italy.
Not sure what you meant with the second link. The chapter of mixing religion and state is a very long discussion, and the racial discrimination is so obvious that I won’t even try to argue it (from colonialism, to folks songs like “faccetta nera”, to the practice of madamato).
In any case, the fascist tradition in Italy has been stable. Meloni is from Almirante’s school, for example, and honestly I would be hard pressed to find substantial differences in core pillars of Almirante’s party and Fratelli d’Italia.
Do you have any concrete example perhaps of areas in which fascist parties in Italy changed positions substantially over the years?
They always do like they are doing it right now
So “no”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgia_Meloni
“Prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, she was in favour of better relations with Russia and supported lifting sanctions on the Russian Federation in 2014. In 2018, she congratulated Vladimir Putin for his re-election as president. In 2021, she wrote that Russia under Putin defends European values and Christian identity.”
Do your own research
A specific alliance is not an ideological change. She was allied of Russia until that was functional to pushing her own values (racism, anti-lgbtq, anti-muslim, christianity etc.), and didn’t conflict with atlantism. Now that it does, things changed. If anything this is an argument in favour of my thesis.
You are talking about research as if this was not known to anybody. You need to explain how this change in relationship with Russia is an ideological change. She also changed coalitions and historically she changed relationship with Lega and before that with Forza Italia. That doesn’t prove that her ideology changed.
Again, give a concrete example.
Edit: some examples in case you think I am asking an impossible task:
FDI instead is exactly the inheritance of MSI, following the same politics. Meloni herself considered Almirante the father of the right wing. That’s the core. And presenting it as opportunistic is underestimating it. Salvini is opportunistic. He is a fascist when is useful, he is a politics whore, will change in a blink of an eye. Meloni is not. She has her shitty ideas since she was a teenager militant, and those will stay the same.
Sure, depending on what is happening she might be anti-EU or more filo-EU, but that’s because those positions (like in the case of Russia) are subordinated to the core values of her (party).
This person got elected campaigning against EU and is now captaining a EU summit. They campaigned against surrogacy and electric cars and are in bed with elon musk contracting him military infrastructures.
The current government is a coalition between meloni, salvini and berlusconi party.
And that’s what I said. Completely expected. And her position about EU will change again depending on what happens in Europe. Right now she is still trying to reconcile EU and US.
That’s also what I said. Government coalitions, especially in Italy, are not expressive of any particular ideology. Also not Berlusconi’s party anymore, thankfully, since he is feeding worms.
What I want to say is that Meloni has some core values. These values are essentially the same that were for MSI, and those were the same that were for the PNF. Other positions are subordinated to those values, which means that her position about Europe, but also her atlantism change over time, depending on what serves best those core values. Atlantism for example sounds extremely contradictory for a nationalist party which, during fascism, preached autarchy. So, did they change? No, not really. Atlantism is essentially a byproduct of anticommunism since the cold war era. Likewise, EU position change depending if that is more functional to push nationalism (I.e., Netherlands and Germany want to strangle Italy - nationalism) or other stuff.
The biggest difference is that people like Salvini were born politically as communists, joined the Lega Nord preaching independence of Padania within a party that literally wiped their ass with Italian flag, then moved to become nationalist populistic party once he took the lead. What are Salvini’s core political values? None. Meloni is a much more serious politician, which makes her much more dangerous, because she does have an ideology, and she does what is functional to push that ideology. Saying that fascists don’t have ideas is - IMHO - straight up dangerous, because it gives the idea that they are not serious about what they do, and if the wind changes, they will also change. Meloni so far didn’t change since she had a party with 3-4% and played Berlusconi’s crutch until now.