Italy’s populist right looks menacing
Matteo Salvini’s Northern League could hook up with the more extreme Brothers of Italy
ON MAY 20TH Italy’s interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, was due in Tunis with the EU’s commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, to investigate and discuss a humanitarian crisis that has opened deep divisions in Italy’s new government. So far this month 4,290 migrants have reached Italy’s shores, compared with 1,654 in the whole of May last year. Many set sail from Tunisia. The number of arrivals in 2021 is now more than 13,000—triple the volume in the same period last year. And the summer months, when crossing the Mediterranean is easiest, lie ahead.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Waiting in the wings”
Europe May 22nd 2021
- Italy’s populist right looks menacing
- Germany is apologising for crimes a century ago in Namibia
- Balkan money-laundering is booming
- Poland’s government eases coalition tensions with a spending splurge
- NATO increasingly sees its soldiers’ phones as a liability
- How Greece became Europe’s unlikely model student
From the May 22nd 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Europe
Meet Europe’s Gaullists, Atlanticists, denialists and Putinists
As Donald Trump returns, so do Europe’s old schisms over how to defend itself
Inside Europe, border checks are creeping back
Voters and politicians are worried about unauthorised migrants
The EU is worried about sensitive exports to competitors and foes
A lot of bureaucracy will ensue
A day of drama in the Bundestag
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s probable next chancellor, takes a huge bet and triggers uproar
Amid talk of a ceasefire, Ukraine’s front line is crumbling
An ominous defeat in the eastern town of Velyka Novosilka
The French government’s survival is now in Socialist hands
Moderates attempt to move away from the radicals