Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, joining other European far-right figures including Éric Zemmour, a one-time French presidential candidate known for his xenophobia.
Meloni’s attendance at the event in Washington DC on Monday was confirmed by her office and will be seen as further cementing relations with the US president-elect.
The Italian leader made a flying visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida earlier this month, during which Trump described her as “a fantastic woman” who is “really taking Europe by storm”.
The pair first met in Paris in early December for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. Meloni, who leads Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist origins, has been a longtime supporter of Trump. Before coming to power in October 2022, she regularly travelled to his political gatherings and praised his brand of politics as a model for Italy.
She was also savvy in building good relations with Joe Biden and bolstering Italy’s Atlanticist credentials. During a recent press conference, she said she had a “very solid relationship” with Trump and an “excellent relationship” with Biden. “But having two conservative leaders can further strengthen convergence. It’s added value for Italy and the EU,” she said.
Observers have said that common views on issues ranging from immigration to abortion, alongside Meloni’s strong relationship with Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk, could result in her becoming his main interlocutor in Europe.
Trump broke with tradition by inviting several foreign leaders to his inauguration ceremony, which will take place inside the Capitol due to cold temperatures.
From Europe, Meloni will be joined by Zemmour, an ultranationalist, xenophobic polemicist who has convictions for hate speech and is an exponent of the far-right “great replacement” theory, as well as Tom Van Grieken of Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang party, and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland’s national-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS).
The attendance of Tino Chrupalla, a co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), was confirmed by the party on Thursday. The invitation followed Musk’s endorsement of the party and a discussion with the co-leader Alice Weidel on his social media platform, X, which raised further concerns about his ambition to influence European politics.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK anti-immigration Reform party, will also be present. Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Victor Orbán, another Trump supporter, was invited but will not be attending, while Argentina’s populist leader, Javier Milei, who visited Rome in December for Atreju, the annual festival organised by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, will be there.
During the recent press conference, Meloni defended both Trump and Musk. Asked about Trump’s remarks on Greenland and the Panama canal, Meloni said she believed they were intended as messages to other global powers rather than hostile claims against the two countries.
In response to the attacks by Musk on several European leaders, in particular the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Meloni rejected a suggestion that his comments constituted “dangerous interference”.
“The problem is when wealthy people use their resources to finance parties, associations and political exponents all over the world to influence the political choices of nation states,” Meloni said. “That’s not what Musk is doing.”
