Giorgia Meloni's new Europe : Europe of sovereign nations in the Brothers of Italy party manifestos

The aim of this article is to present the idea of Europe as it is seen by the Italian conservative-sovereign party Fratelli d’Italia. FdI, like the other European parties that comprise the European Conservatives and Reformists grouping, attach great significance to the traditions and national identities of individual member states. Their vision of Europe, based on a confederation of sovereign and free states, allows the FdI to be classified as eurorealistic or representing so-called ‘soft Euroscepticism’. The FdI opposes the federal model of the European Union, the idea of creating a European superstate and an extensive EU bureaucracy. They also criticise the policy of multiculturalism, considering it a threat to the European identity based on common Greco-Latin-Christian roots, as well as a means of Islamising Europe. The party’s Eurosceptic attitude is most strongly manifested in the proposal to leave the eurozone and in its criticism of the Franco-German axis as trying to hegemonise Europe and pursuing its interests at the expense of other member states.