With Orbán gone and Meloni distancing herself, EU sanctions on trade and settlers are looking more likely

It was a bad week for Israel in Europe: the country lost its staunchest regional ally when Viktor Orbán was toppled from power in Hungary, and Italy suspended a key defence pact.

The shifts are likely to pave the way for long-delayed sanctions against violent settlers in the occupied West Bank, and add to broader pressure for the EU to reconsider its relationship with Israel over its wars in Gaza and the wider region.

Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government to ask MPs to back controversial voluntary repatriation scheme

Italian lawyers will be paid bonuses if they successfully convince their immigrant clients to return home under a government plan that has been compared to a “wild west-style bounty”.

The incentive is in the latest security bill from Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government and goes to the lower house of parliament for final approval this week. It was passed by the upper house after fiery debate.

Silvia Salis, the leftwing mayor of Genoa and former Olympian, is described as ‘a breath of fresh air’ and potential unifier

It has been a turbulent month in Italian politics.

A failed referendum on a judicial overhaul pierced prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s aura of invincibility, triggering government resignations and leaving her scrambling to restore credibility. At the same time, her once special relationship with Donald Trump has frayed after the US president publicly scolded her this week for criticising his broadside against Pope Leo and for not supporting the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Energie ist in Italien enorm teuer geworden, auch weil das Land stark vom Gas abhängig ist. Nun diskutiert man viele Maßnahmen – von mehr Home-Office bis Temperaturgrenzen in Innenräumen.

With an eye on elections in 2027, Italy’s far-right PM appears to be making a tactful pivot away from US president

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Six months ago, Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, stood surrounded by men on a stage in Sharm el-Sheikh, where world leaders had gathered to discuss the Gaza peace deal.

In front of her, Donald Trump showered praise and insults on the assembled leaders, before describing Meloni as a “beautiful young woman”. Turning towards her, he added: “You don’t mind being called beautiful, right? Because you are. Thank you very much for coming.”

Kanzler Merz reist am Freitag zu einem Treffen mit Frankreichs Präsident Macron und weiteren Partnern nach Paris. Die Hürden für einen Schutz der wichtigen Meerenge bleiben hoch.

Da Italiens Ministerpräsidentin Meloni den Papst verteidigt, attackiert Trump sie – und beendet damit eine politische Freundschaft. Auch gegen Leo XIV. legt der US-Präsident nach.

Remarks come as Italian PM suspends defence agreement with Israel amid growing domestic pressure over conflict

Donald Trump lashed out at one of his closest allies on Tuesday, saying Italy’s Giorgia Meloni lacked courage in light of her failure to join the US in attacking Iran.

“I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

US president suggests alliance needs pressure placed on it to ‘understand anything’ as reports suggest he has demanded commitments to help secure strait of Hormuz

Donald Trump has taken to his Truth Social platform again on Thursday to renew his criticism of the alliance.

The US president posted that “none of these people” (which people is unclear), including “our own, very disappointing Nato, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!!!”.

Whether that relates to earlier reports (13.28) that Trump told the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, he wanted to see concrete commitments within days from Nato members for helping to secure the strait of Hormuz remains to be seen.

Many countries in Europe have called the conflict illegal, with some blocking Israeli and US planes from moving weapons through their airspace

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Donald Trump has launched a tirade against European countries that refused to join his war against Iran, calling out the UK and France, as transatlantic relations soured from the spiralling conflict that has wreaked havoc on the global economy.

On his Truth Social website, the US president told governments worried about fuel prices to “go get your own oil” by force from the Gulf, comments that sent oil prices even higher.

From Italy to France, Germany to Hungary, far-right governments and politicians are targeting media with the same playbook

• Revealed: Five EU governments found to ‘consistently’ dismantle rule of law

Barely six months after Giorgia Meloni’s government was sworn in, the chief executive of Italy’s public broadcaster Rai resigned. Carlo Fuortes cited “a political conflict” as the reason for his departure in May 2023, a year before the end of his term.

The top posts quickly went to nominees with ties to Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots. Rai’s CEO is now Giampaolo Rossi, a former Rai board member who has in the past voiced support for Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump.

Judicial independence is under threat as populist politicians target judges and authoritarian governments attempt constitutional reforms

• Revealed: Five EU governments found to ‘consistently’ dismantle rule of law

In March last year, a Paris court found Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement and barred her from running in next year’s presidential race in France. The far-right figurehead took to the airwaves to slam a “political decision” and “denial of democracy”.

Le Pen, who has appealed, said she had been subjected to a “tyranny of judges” and a “political assassination”. The “system” had dropped “a nuclear bomb” on her. The presiding judge was then threatened by others on social media and her home address shared.

Prime minister is scrambling to clean up her government after youth vote powered a damaging referendum defeat

Filippo Michelini was having a drink at San Calisto, a popular bar in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood on Wednesday night. As he chatted to his friends, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government was reeling from a failed referendum, and her beleaguered tourism minister, Daniela Santanchè, had just resigned.

Michelini, a 29-year-old computer scientist who lives in Brussels, was spending a few days in the Italian capital after returning home last weekend to cast his ballot in the plebiscite on judicial changes.

Die rechte Ministerpräsidentin hat eine schwere Niederlage erlitten. Auf Elly Schlein, Chefin der größten Oppositionspartei Italiens, setzt die Linke des Landes die Hoffnung.

The Italian PM has won plaudits for her tightrope-walking pragmatism. But have voters now had enough?

Giorgia Meloni has a long history of defying expectations. She holds the record as Italy’s youngest cabinet member, at 31, and is its first female prime minister, thus overcoming two of Italian politics’ most formidable obstacles, gerontocracy and machismo. After she took office in autumn 2022, she quickly put to rest concerns that her post-fascist background would make her a foreign policy radical. Staunch support for Ukraine and a pragmatic relationship with EU leaders won her international credibility.

Against this backdrop, the defeat she suffered in this week’s referendum – where Italians rejected the government’s proposed constitutional reform of the judiciary by 53.2% to 46.8% – appears all the more significant.

Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome

Giorgia Meloni made public request for Daniela Santanchè to quit in effort to restore credibility after voters rejected judicial reform

Italy’s embattled tourism minister has resigned, heeding a call to step down as the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, strives to restore credibility after a bruising defeat in a referendum that has thrown her far-right government into turmoil.

The resignation on Wednesday of Daniela Santanchè, a prominent and brash member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, came after the prime minister took the unusual step of calling in a public statement for her to go.

Events in Denmark and Italy show geopolitical instability is creating opportunities for a centre-left response to the far right

In the lead-up to Denmark’s snap election on Tuesday, it was revealed that blood supplies were flown into Greenland in January in order to treat Danish military casualties in the event of a US invasion. Against that surreal backdrop, the country’s Social Democrat prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, did not need to work too hard to justify a “stick to what you know” message in uncertain times.

Ms Frederiksen’s surprise gamble in calling an early poll duly paid off, but only just. Donald Trump’s threats to annex territory belonging to a Nato ally handed her party a patriotic lifeline, after it had endured a historic humiliation in local contests last November. But in a campaign dominated by domestic issues, the hoped-for Trump bump was modest, meaning that any Frederiksen-led coalition will depend on centrist support. The Social Democratic party remains comfortably the biggest political force, but its vote share dropped markedly compared to the last general election, while rivals to the left and on the far right made notable gains.

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France’s National Rally missed key targets in local elections ahead of next year’s seismic presidential vote – and the mainstream is doing OK elsewhere, too

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The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either.

But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high.