Meloni's Brothers of Italy party launches saucy carbonara crusade in the European Parliament

After having accused the European Commission of "cancelling Christmas," Italian conservatives are now turning their ire against the European Parliament, which in their view is guilty of allowing the sales of faux "Italian-style" products within its premises in Brussels.

On Tuesday, the Brothers of Italy party's delegation in Parliament announced it would formally submit a letter to President Roberta Metsola regarding the use of the Italian flag and names on some pasta sauce bottles sold in the Parliament building’s first-floor market.

“The improper use of symbols or references to Italianness on products that do not come from Italy may constitute a deceptive practice and therefore be prosecutable,” Brothers of Italy head of delegation Carlo Fidanza said in a statement to Euronews, quoting an EU regulation prohibiting misleading ads.

The letter follows a Facebook post by Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, who posted pictures of some bottled sauces made in Belgium, labelled with Italy's tricolour flag and Italian-sounding names, including the famous carbonara pasta sauce.

“I asked to immediately launch a verification,” Lollobrigida wrote on Tuesday.

The bottled sauces are indeed on sale in the Parliament’s market, Euronews has verified.

The labels of these food items do not claim that the product is made in Italy, but only that some ingredients come from Italy and, for this reason, are associated with an Italian flag.

For the record, the carbonara’s bottle contains ingredients like heavy cream and pancetta that are not part of the original traditional recipewhich requires guanciale instead — and decidedly no cream — but this was not the primary focus of Lollobrigida’s complaint.

This is the last food-related crusade put forward by Meloni’s party, which has previously roasted others for using meat-related terms like “burger” and “sausage” for plant-based products and even approved a law prohibiting the production in Italy of lab-grown meat.

Minister Lollobrigida is also no stranger to the subject. Two years ago, he sparked outrage by saying that "In Italy, poor people eat better than the rich."

Pre-made sauce sold in jars is generally frowned upon in Italy, whose residents pride themselves on traditional recipes and high-quality ingredients.

In September 2024, an announcement by US manufacturer Heinz of a new carbonara-in-a-can product embroiled the southern European country in a massive spat, with the likes of Michelin-starred chef Alessandro Pipero calling the new tinned pasta so abhorrent it amounts to “cat food”.