Meloni Party MEP Elected To Senior Position For First Time

In the second round of voting for the 14 vice presidents of the European Parliament on 16 July, Italian MEP Antonella Sberna was elected. Sberna hails from the conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) of PM Giorgia Meloni, and he becomes the first politician from the party to take a senior EU position. Historically, the political groups of the centre - the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew Europe (RE) - had formed a cordon sanitaire in order to block politicians they few as 'far right' from senior positions.

• This cordon focused on individual parties rather than the political group. The FdI sits within the conservative European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, but politicians from other parties in that group - including Poland's Law and Justice and Latvia's National Alliance - had been elected to high-ranking positions.
• Since coming to power in Italy in 2022 and becoming the largest party in the ECR, the centrist parties have had to reassess their stance towards FdI. Continuing to exclude its politicians from senior roles would risk a backlash from Meloni, the leader of the third-largest economy in the EU with significant influence in terms of voting power.
• With Sberna's election focus now turns to the FdI's decision in supporting or opposing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for another term (see 'MNI: Von der Leyen Nears Backing For Second Term - MEPs' 1633BST 16 July).