He was the favorite to become the next commissioner of Italy in the EU and he succeeded. With Raffaele Fito now officially acting as executive vice president for cohesion and reforms, Rome will have a new form of relationship with Brussels, Politico writes.

To tighten its ties with the EU, Georgia Meloni has found the perfect person for the job. The Italian prime minister, who didn’t want Ursula von der Leyen as Commission president again, unlike many European leaders, chose Fito for the post of European Union commissioner.

Raffaele Fito is a rarity in Meloni’s “Brothers of Italy” party, the majority of which is made up of Eurosceptics, nationalists, and politicians with no experience. He is a former member of the European Parliament, is considered a pragmatist, and, having been a minister in charge of European affairs since October 2022, is in favor of the “27.”

Fito is the ideal person to build bridges as he has diplomatic mastery and is well-versed in politics, said Johan van Overtveld, a Belgian MEP for the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

While each EU member government can choose who it wants on the “27” committee for the next five years before the August 30 deadline, it is Ursula von der Leyen who will decide who to trust for each portfolio.

Fito’s appointment as commissioner at the commission means Meloni could be constructive rather than a troublemaker despite her recent clash with the EU over alleged media freedom violations.

Gentle but ruthless Fito

Italy, however, would like its commissioner to the Commission to have a post related to economic issues. And not only that. It wanted a commissioner role, a vice-commissioner, overseeing several portfolios and focusing on economic and fiscal policy, according to officials with knowledge of the proceedings.

Fito knows the EU budget, and as minister in charge of European affairs, he is doing in Italy what the commission is considering re-implementing across the bloc: increasing government oversight of European funding for the poorest regions.

In Brussels, the next budget chief will have to convince the commission of greater scrutiny and resistance from regions that want to be left alone. People who have worked with Fito describe him as “democristiano” (Christian Democrat), kind and ruthless at the same time. To his opponents, he is a politician without vision, a mouthpiece for Meloni.

“Fox in charge of a chicken coop”

A Commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said a few months ago that giving Fito an economic portfolio would be like “putting a fox in charge of a chicken coop”, given that Italy is the main beneficiary of the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund and has the second-highest GDP debt-to-GDP ratio in Europe.

However, his political mind would endure in a position that is all about compromise, and backroom deals and in which the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) – that of von der Leyen and of which Fito himself was originally a member – holds the levers of power.

The fight between Berlusconi and the “Brothers of Italy”

Fito became involved in public life in 1990, at the age of 20. At the time, his father, Salvatore, was regional governor of Puglia representing the Christian Democrats – the centrist party that ruled Italy for decades before being implicated in a corruption scandal in the early 1990s. When Salvatore died in a car crash, Fito took matters into his own hands.

In the following decades, Fito began his political shenanigans, proving he has the survival instinct with the foresight to surprise friends and foes alike.

“I was surprised” when Fito announced he would join the far-right Brothers of Italy, Meloni’s party in 2018, recalls an old acquaintance.

At the time, the tiny Italian opposition party was identified with the country’s fascist past.

In contrast, Fito was a rising star in the center-right Forza Italia party but had fallen out with the party’s then-leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

“I have to do this, to join Meloni’s party because it’s the only way to survive politically,” he had told a scientist friend. “It was clear he had a plan.” And it finally paid off,” he recalls.

Family, politics, and football

When Meloni took over as Italy’s prime minister in October 2022, she gave Fito a strong portfolio that included managing Italy’s nearly €200 billion package to the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund and, more broadly, liaising with Brussels.

Even then, his appointment was a signal that Meloni who had a history of Eurosceptic tendencies wanted to work with the EU.

Commission officials were relieved, however, that their interlocutor was more interested in meeting payment deadlines.

His allies describe him as a workaholic who “cares about family and politics” as well as the Juventus football team.

“Fito is essentially a politician who got his hands dirty with technicalities,” said a commission official who has dealt with him extensively.

With two years to go until the pandemic recovery fund expires, Italy has secured 58 percent in EU funding – well above average – and largely stayed out of trouble with the commission.

“Raffaele Fito always understood that you have to have relations with those who hold the keys to the portfolio,” a Fito confidant had said, without being named.