Speaking to POLITICO last week, he didn’t attack the single currency or even the EU, instead saying “we want to give Europe one last chance, but in return we want to see real change, especially when it comes to Schengen and the Dublin treaty” — the two EU treaties that regulate cross-border movement in the bloc.
Libero, an Italian daily that follows the Northern League’s line, described Salvini’s comments (first reported in Brussels Playbook) as “a small shift in foreign policy,” with the party moving “from euro-nihilism to Euroskepticism.” It said that shift has become more marked since Marine Le Pen’s defeat in the French presidential election. [...]
In all three Berlusconi coalition governments, he has found a place for the Northern League and that will be the case again if talks to create a center-right bloc succeed. When the Northern League was in power in the past, it didn’t have a clear anti-euro line, which has emerged since Salvini took over the leadership. [...]
Salvini doesn’t just want to prop up the old warhorse Berlusconi. This admirer of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin wants to be prime minister — and he could achieve that ambition if his party gets more votes than Berlusconi’s. (The tycoon, who turns 81 next month, won’t be prime minister anyway, as a conviction for tax fraud means he cannot be elected to parliament). [...]
He has succeeded in turning the Northern League from an anti-migrant party that wanted to split from the poorer Italian south into a stronger force that campaigns against the euro (and still doesn’t like migrants), and has no qualms about forging ties with the likes of the neo-fascist Casa Pound activist group.
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