Salvini Takes Control of Europe’s Future, by Tom Luongo.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini just declared himself the leader of the Europe’s future. He refuses to budge one inch in negotiations with the European Union over Italy’s budget now threatening to take down the government.
And in doing this he not only speaks for Italians, he is now speaking for that growing part of the European population who sees what the EU is morphing into and recoiling in horror.
Matteo Salvini, deputy PM of Italy, leader of the Northern League (Lega Nord), junior partner in governing in coalition with the Five Star movement
Protests in France over Emmanuel Macron’s new tax on diesel have turned violent. The British leadership has completely betrayed the people over Brexit. They may win this battle but the animosity towards the Britain’s leadership will only grow more virulent over time.
As the core leadership in France and Germany fades in popularity, held in place because of domestic political squabbling, Angela Merkel and Macron are ratcheting up the rhetoric against the rising nationalism Salvini represents and are now pushing hard for their Federation of Europe before both of them leave the scene in the next few years, at best.
If they lose their battles with Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orban they may be run out of office with pitchforks and firebrands. …
Salvini can do make these bold threats because his Lega keeps rising in opinion polls every time he makes them. …
But it’s not just Italy’s future he’s playing for anymore. He knows that Italy is now the standard bearer for resistance to the EU’s particularly odious strain of technocracy. …
Once in office he and his partner M5S’s Luigi Di Maio then went full-steam ahead with an economic package that was equal parts campaign promises fulfilled and a thumb in Merkel’s eye.
Salvini declared with Orban to develop a “League of Leagues” to storm the Bastille of the European Parliament in May’s elections.
And the more he does this the more popular he becomes.
But, more importantly, the more he and Di Maio stick to their guns the more Italians come to see Brussels as the enemy of their future. And make no mistake, they are looking at how Theresa “Gypsum Lady” May is delivering a Brexit of everyone’s nightmares to Britons and becoming more willing to face the dreaded ‘uncertainty’ breaking with the EU represents. …
Lega is currently the junior partner in Italy’s government. Snap elections could easily see the party top 40% of the vote and have an almost insurmountable popular mandate for taking the confrontational approach to Brussels while scaring his coalition partners, M5S, into following him.
