With little more than a year until the election, Meloni must reconcile enlargement with its domestic costs
Milan, ITALY – Giorgia Meloni’s support for EU enlargement risks cutting funds to poorer Italian regions her coalition needs, a year before the election.
Rome has been a vocal champion of enlargement, pushing to open talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina and backing Albania’s bid.
But a new study, conducted by the think-tank Centro Europa Ricerche (CER) and commissioned by the Left group in the European Parliament, shows what enlargement could cost Italy. The analysis applies enlargement to the current EU budget rather than the still-unnegotiated 2028-2034 framework.
If nine candidate countries joined under today’s rules, Sardinia could lose 58% of its EU funding, while parts of southern and central Italy could see cohesion allocations fall by 30-60%.
