Tung EU-kritik mot italienska utgiftsökningen

Lega Nord (LN; English: Northern League), whose complete name is Lega Nord per l'Indipendenza della Padania (Northern League for the Independence of Padania), is a regionalist political party in Italy. In the run-up of the 2018 general election, the party was rebranded as Lega (League) without changing its official name in the party's statute. The party was nonetheless frequently referred to only as "Lega" even before the rebranding. The LN is often also referred to as Carroccio (a reference to a four-wheeled war altar used in the Middle Ages) by the Italian media. The LN was founded in 1991 as a federation of several regional parties of Northern and Central Italy, notably including Liga Veneta, Lega Lombarda, Piemont Autonomista, Uniun Ligure, Lega Emiliano-Romagnola and Alleanza Toscana. The party's founder was Umberto Bossi, federal secretary from 1991 to 2012. After an internal crisis and struggle, the LN was briefly led by Roberto Maroni. In 2013, Matteo Salvini defeated Bossi in a leadership election and became secretary. Giancarlo Giorgetti and Lorenzo Fontana are deputy secretaries. Leading members include Attilio Fontana (President of Lombardy), Luca Zaia (President of Veneto), Massimiliano Fedriga (President of Friuli-Venezia Giulia), Nicoletta Spelgatti (President of Aosta Valley), Roberto Calderoli, Gian Marco Centinaio and Massimo Bitonci. Former leading members have included Roberto Cota, Roberto Castelli, Francesco Speroni, Flavio Tosi, Giancarlo Pagliarini, Gipo Farassino, Marco Formentini, Domenico Comino, Fabrizio Comencini, Franco Rocchetta and Gianfranco Miglio. The LN advocates the transformation of Italy into a federal state, fiscal federalism and greater regional autonomy, especially for Northern regions. At times, the party has advocated the secession of the North, referred to by party members as "Padania" and consequently Padanian nationalism. However, under Salvini the party has to some extent embraced Italian nationalism and emphasised Euroscepticism, opposition to immigration and other "populist" policies while forming an alliance with right-wing populist parties such as France's National Front, the Netherlands' Party for Freedom and the Freedom Party of Austria at the European level. Salvini established a sister party in Southern Italy named Us with Salvini and for the 2018 general election restyled the party's symbol and name, dropping the word "Nord" and introducing "Salvini Premier". All these changes have been harshly criticised by Bossi and the Padanist old guard, which now operates from a minority position within the party.In the 2018 general election, the League was the third-largest party behind the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Democratic Party (PD). In the most recent regional elections, the LN was the largest party in Veneto (where Zaia was re-elected President by 50.1% of the vote in 2015), Lombardy (where Fontana was elected by 49.8% of the vote in 2018 and succeeded to Maroni) and Friuli-Venezia Giulia (where Fedriga was elected by 57.1% of the vote in 2018), the second-largest in Aosta Valley (where Spelgatti was elected by the Regional Council in 2018, at the head of a coalition comprising centre-left and left-wing autonomist parties), Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, the third-largest in Liguria, Marche and Umbria, the fourth-largest in Piedmont and the fifth-largest in Trentino.

The Five Star Movement (Italian: Movimento 5 Stelle [moviˈmento ˈtʃiŋkwe ˈstelle], M5S) is a political party in Italy. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a popular comedian and blogger, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. After Casaleggio's death in April 2016, Grillo appointed a directorate composed of five leading MPs (Alessandro Di Battista, Luigi Di Maio, Roberto Fico, Carla Ruocco and Carlo Sibilia), which lasted until the following October when he dissolved it and proclaimed himself the "political head" of the M5S. Grillo is also formally president of the association named the Five Star Movement; his nephew, Enrico Grillo, serves as vice president; and his accountant, Enrico Maria Nadasi, as secretary. Davide Casaleggio, Gianroberto's son, has an increasingly important albeit unofficial role.The M5S is variously considered populist, anti-establishment, environmentalist, alter-globalist and Eurosceptic. The party has also been described as New Right and accused of being right-wing due to its anti-immigration stance despite its promotion of policies usually advocated by Italian left-wingers, such as citizen's income and green policies. Grillo himself once provocatively referred to the movement as "populist". Its members stress that the M5S is not a party but a "movement", and it may not be included in the traditional left–right paradigm. The "five stars" are a reference to five key issues for the party: public water, sustainable transport, sustainable development, right to Internet access, and environmentalism. The party also advocates e-democracy, direct democracy, the principle of "zero-cost politics", degrowth and nonviolence. In foreign policy, the M5S has criticized military interventions of the West in the Greater Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya) as well as any notion of American intervention in Syria.In the 2013 general election, the M5S won the most votes of all parties (excluding votes from Italians abroad) for the Chamber of Deputies. However, its deputies only held 109 of 630 positions as M5S refused to join a coalition. Since the 2014 European Parliament election, the M5S has been part of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group in the European Parliament, along with the UK Independence Party and minor right-wing parties. In January 2017, M5S members voted in favor of Grillo's proposal to join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group, but the party was eventually refused, and M5S continues to be part of the EFDD group. In 2016, two party members, Virginia Raggi and Chiara Appendino, were elected mayors of Rome and Turin, respectively. On 21–22 September 2017, the Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies Luigi Di Maio was elected with 82% of votes in an online primary election as candidate to the premiership and "political head" of the movement, replacing Grillo as leader of the M5S, but not as the M5S's "guarantor". In January 2018, Grillo separated his own blog from the movement, which was used in the previous years as an M5S online newspaper and the main propaganda tool.In the 2018 general election, the M5S became the largest individual party in the Italian Parliament and entered government.