Brothers of Italy

Brothers of Italy (, FdI) is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Italy, the country's largest after the 2022 Italian general election. The party is led by Giorgia Meloni, the incumbent Prime Minister of Italy. According to observers, FdI marked Italy's first republican government led by a right-wing party and its most right-wing government since World War II. In December 2012, FdI emerged from a right-wing split within The People of Freedom (PdL) party. The bulk of FdI's membership (including Meloni, who has led the party since 2014), and its symbol, the tricolour flame, hail from the post-fascist National Alliance (AN), which was established in 1995 and merged into PdL in 2009. AN was the successor to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party active from 1945 to 1995. However, FdI is home also to several former Christian Democrats and half of its ministers are not former MSI members. According to Meloni and leading members, FdI is a mainstream conservative party. Academics and observers have variously described it as conservative, national-conservative, right-wing populist, social-conservative, nationalist, neo-fascist, post-fascist, nativist and anti-immigrant. The party espouses a Eurosceptic position, while being in favour of Atlanticism. While its MEPs were originally affiliated with the European People's Party Group, the party has since been a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, which has been led by Meloni since 2020. FdI proposes a confederal Europe of nations as opposed to a federal Europe. History