The news
Europe’s far-right leaders converged on Italy on Sunday in support of the country’s deputy prime minister, who is facing prosecution over his anti-immigration stance.
Matteo Salvini could be sentenced to as many as six years in prison over his 2019 decision to ban a boat carrying more than a hundred migrants from docking in Italy. Prosecutors allege he essentially kidnapped the migrants, forcing them to remain at sea despite increasingly bleak conditions on their boat.
Far-right rioters, including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, came to Salvini’s defense and railed against Brussels and illegal immigration on Sunday – the latest demonstration of Europe’s growing ideological divide over immigration.
As a result of the fragmentation and polarization, European governments have “struggled to find common ground even on fundamental issues, let alone on some of their most immediate problems,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. “The mainstream political leaders now rule in unwieldy coalitions between left and right parties, their hands tied on most major policy issues, from migration to the war in Ukraine to their stagnant economies.”
