Italy gets new tranche of EU funds as dust settles from vote

ROME (AP) — The European Commission signed off Tuesday on the next 21-billion-euro ($20.2 billion) tranche of Italy’s pandemic recovery funds, a welcome infusion that comes amid questions about whether Giorgia Meloni and her euroskeptic party, which won the national election, will be able to keep the funding coming.

The outgoing government of Premier Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief, secured the funds after having achieved 45 milestones required by Brussels to receive the money. They included enacting reforms of public administration, education and health care, and investments in technology, research, tourism and culture. A first allotment of 21 billion euros, also tied to reforms and investments, was transferred to Italy in April.

Italy received the largest share of the European Union's recovery fund, around 191.5 billion euros ($185 billion), since it was the European country hardest hit financially by the pandemic's first wave, when the government shuttered nonessential industry. Draghi made hitting the EU-mandated milestones a hallmark of his 18-month national unity government, which collapsed in July when key allies boycotted a confidence vote.

Meloni's Brothers of Italy, which has its roots in a neo-fascist party and campaigned on a nationalist program, won 26% of the vote. It is poised to lead a center-right coalition government alongside the anti-immigrant League with roots in Italy's productive north and the Forza Italia party of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Meloni's victory lurched Italy, a founding member of the EU and its third-largest economy, sharply to the far-right, and was cheered by other euroskeptic leaders in France and Spain who have also made electoral gains in recent months.

Italy has in the past failed to capture all EU funding allocated to it, raising concerns over whether...