Italy's Meloni slams energy policy as campaign intensifies

Leading his first campaign rally, Italy's far-right leader Giorgia Meloni criticized the European Union's energy strategy on Tuesday, saying families and businesses were "brought to their knees" by soaring prices.

Meloni, who for weeks has been buoyed by opinion polls showing her leading in her quest to become Italy's first female prime minister and its first far-right head of government, used the evening pep rally in Ancona, an Adriatic port city, to hammer home longstanding themes for his Brethren of Italy party, whose symbol borrows an icon from a neo-fascist party.

She told a crowd of around 1,000 in a town square that there was a reason she had chosen Ancona in the Marche region of east-central Italy. Italy for its inaugural rally for the September 25 ballot for Parliament.

"I don't start in Ancona by chance," Meloni said, saying she did so so she could remind voters that "we have a class of leaders ready to rule the country."

Introducing Meloni, the governor of the Marches, Francesco Acquaroli, elected in 2020 on the list of the Brothers of Italy, one of the many local or regional elections where his party has gained popularity in recent years, sometimes to the detriment of his right-wing ally, Anti-Migrant League leader Matteo Salvini.

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Meloni's main rival in opinion polls in recent weeks has been Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta, a center-left former prime minister, but while Meloni has center-right campaign alliances with Salvini and with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Letta and his party failed to forge such strong and broad center-left alliances.

Salvini, Berlusconi and another populist leader, Giuseppe Conte, the former Prime Minister who leads the 5 Star Movement, sank the government. ment of national unity from Prime Minister Mario Draghi last month when they refused to back him in a vote of confidence.

Often shouting, Meloni proclaimed that the political right is "ready to give answers to the country that the left has not been able to do" for years.

She argued that the European Union has failed to develop policies guaranteeing energy supplies available and affordable. Skyrocketing energy prices "have forced businesses and families to their knees," Meloni said.

While...