Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) holds a giant Italian national flag during a political rally on February 24, 2018 in Milan, Italy.
Emanuele Cremaschi | Getty Images.
Reaching political consensus and cementing any coalition could then take weeks and a new government may only come to power in October.
Incumbent Mario Draghi, a much-loved technocrat who was forced out by political infighting in July, agreed to stay on as caretaker.
A volunteer prepares pink ballot papers at a polling station in Rome’.
On an economic level, it has deferred to the center-right coalition’s position that the next government should cut sales taxes on certain goods to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis, and has said Italy should renegotiate its Covid-19 recovery funds with the EU.
Fratelli d’Italia has been pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine and supports sanctions against Russia, unlike Lega which is ambivalent about those measures.
'We have to cooperate with Europe and the European community,' Italy lawmaker