The Italian Fratelli d'Italia party, led by Giorgia Meloni, is now a member of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (ACRE).
“Italy will play a crucial role in the next European elections as well as in the Future of Europe and I am happy to welcome Giorgia Meloni and her party Fratelli d'Italia into our ACRE family today”, said Jan Zahradil (ECR, Czech Republic), leading candidate on the European Conservative list for the European elections (see EUROPE 12136), on Friday 22 February on Twitter.
In the first issue of The Conservative magazine, Mrs Meloni asserts that her party and the Conservatives in Europe “will work [...] to bridge the divide between the EPP centre-right parties and the populists, thereby relegating the left and Macron to the sidelines of European politics”.
Welcoming Viktor Orbán. The former Minister of Youth (2008-2011) for a government led by Silvio Belursconi also hopes that the Hungarian Fidesz party currently in power, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's party, will join the Conservative group after the European elections.
Mr Orbán is once again under fire from criticism after the Hungarian government launched a new public 'anti-Brussels' campaign directly targeting the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who is a member of the European Christian Democratic family like Mr Orbán (see EUROPE 12197).
See the first issue of The Conservative: http://bit.ly/2U8xoW2. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)