Why the elections in Romania and Poland are two crucial games for ECR (and Meloni)

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Brussels . From the Romanian George Simion , a former Putin fan who still can't go to Ukraine, to the Polish Mateusz Morawiecki, a former sworn enemy of Moscow. From the head of the Albanian opposition, Sali Berisha, to Giorgia Meloni who duets in Tirana with Edi Rama. Ecr, the Eurofamily of the Italian Prime Minister, lives on contradictions, some tension and a lot of convenience. A complex puzzle of alliances, a strange "rainbow" family with conservative colors, founded on a confederal idea of ​​Europe in which Meloni remains the only true center of gravity. A family that this weekend, however, is playing two crucial games: the elections in Romania and Poland.

These are appointments that could transform Ecr into the new real center of attraction for the European conservative right or relegate it to a gray area, halfway between the populars and the European sovereignists. The new star of Ecr is the Romanian George Simion, who today in front of the cameras declares himself Atlanticist and pro-European, but who until recently said he was inspired by Putin and that he can't stand Viktor Orbán, a great friend of Meloni, because of the dispute over the territories of Transylvania. Another protagonist is the former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who has always been hostile to Putin but is in open conflict with the EPP and Ursula von der Leyen, an open and irreconcilable war that creates problems for Meloni's choice to build a solid relationship with the president of the EU Commission. Less known, but equally current, is the Albanian contradiction of the European conservatives: among the members of the Ecr party there is also Sali Berisha, former Albanian president and leader of the opposition . Berisha, who in theory is Meloni's ally in the small Balkan country, in practice finds himself having to silently endure the "pink photo story" of the always picturesque meetings between the Italian prime minister and Edi Rama who yesterday knelt at the feet of the prime minister, giving her a picture taken from Masha and the Bear. In ECR there is also a moderate, pro-European wing and, importantly, very pro-government in Europe as at home. In fact, in the European Parliament, sitting alongside the MEPs of Fratelli d'Italia are also those of ODS, the party of Czech prime minister Petr Fiala, and the Flemish liberals of N-VA, led by Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever. Two centre-right formations, repeatedly indicated as potential entries into the EPP, with which they share several positions both in domestic and foreign policy. If the Czech Prime Minister is held back in the ECR by the fragile internal balance of his majority, for the Flemish the door of the EPP is barred by the Spanish Popular Party, hostile to the separatist imprint of the party and to the asylum granted by the Flemish government to the Basque and Catalan separatist leaders. A fact that, apparently, for now does not seem to disturb the Italian, Polish or Romanian super-nationalists of the ECR. Less moderate, but still far from the positions of Simion and Morawiecki, the Swedish Democrats and the True Finns who represent the Scandinavian soul of the ECR: anti-immigration Christian formations, which offer external support to the popular governments of Stockholm and Helsinki.

France is a special case, where the presence in ECR turns into a soap opera. Members of the group are in fact Marion Maréchal and three other MEPs, elected on the lists of Reconquête, the party of Éric Zemmour. After the split between Zemmour and Marine Le Pen (Marion Maréchal's aunt), the four left the party. The only one who remained faithful to Zemmour is Sarah Knafo, the leader's partner, who ended up in the ESN group that includes the German far-right AfD. Maréchal, on the other hand, remained in the group with Meloni, even if the French press recently hypothesized her return to the Rassemblement National, which however in Strasbourg sits in the Patriots for Europe group with Orbán and Salvini.

Compared to the weekend votes, the two games seem destined to end in opposite ways. The polls in Warsaw do not smile on the candidate chosen by Morawiecki for the presidency of Poland, a game that will almost certainly be played in the second round and in which Tusk's man should win, numbers in hand . The scenario is different in Romania where a victory for the former ultranationalist Simion is considered more than possible. The Melonian establishment believes it above all, in fact for days the MEPs of FdI have been escorting the Romanian candidate, accompanying him between Rome and Brussels, between institutional meetings and interviews, putting their faces on the line to guarantee his Euro-Atlantic alignment. For his part, Simion repeats at breakneck speed that his inspiration will be Giorgia Meloni in both domestic and foreign policy. His victory as Romanian would bring one more prime minister to ECR which, together with Italy, Belgium, and the Czech Republic would bring them to four seats out of 27 in the EU Council, one more than the socialists, an overtaking that counts in Europe. But not only that, it would also change the internal balance of power within the group: with a strong Romanian delegation and a defeat for the Poles, the weight of PiS would decrease, making the ECR axis rotate more and more around Giorgia Meloni.

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