Meloni — 46 years old, telegenic, fast on her feet, whip-smart — has been a political operator since her teens. She is in her element working crowds, winning debates and wonking out on policy. Yet she took office amid fears that as head of a party with roots in post-World War II Italian fascism, she would destabilize the world’s eighth-largest economy and send shock waves across Europe.
Italy, the warnings went, is too big to fail and too complex to be run by a party of outsiders with no governing experience. The country’s fling with a fringe political force could prove ruinous as Europe struggles to maintain unity as the biggest war in nearly 80 years rages on its eastern frontier.
A half-year later, Meloni, the first politician in more than a dozen years to become premier by winning an election rather than through coalition jockeying, has defied the doomsayers, especially beyond Italy’s borders. She has done so despite her party’s odious ancestry, its efforts to banish foreign influences in language, food and culture in the cause of reasserting Italian identity, and her own long record playing on nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ themes.
Many might have been expecting an Italian version of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), but instead they have someone angling to be seen as a traditional conservative like former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Even on immigration, which Meloni once said posed a threat of “ethnic substitution,” these days it’s hard to distinguish her tight border policies from President Biden’s.
If she can ride the treacherous waves of Italian coalition politics and manage an economy that has been stagnant for about 20 years — both big ifs — her success might be a template for other right-wingers around Europe. The bad news for other European right-wingers is that it will be hard to duplicate her secret sauce of acumen, good timing and luck.
The acumen was occasioned by the war in Ukraine, a crucible for conservative leaders besotted with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s macho charms and embrace of ostensibly traditional values. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Meloni’s longtime ally, couldn’t quit Putin, and France’s Marine Le Pen, compromised by her party’s past financial backing from Moscow, was an unconvincing convert to the pro-Ukraine cause in her failed 2022 presidential campaign. Meloni’s own governing coalition partners, former premier Silvio Berlusconi and former deputy premier Matteo Salvini, also clung to the Russian dictator.
Meloni was having none of it. Despite past warm words for Putin, her backing for Ukraine has been unflinching; that’s included lethal military aid, which about half the Italian public opposes. She has traveled to Kyiv; laid flowers in Bucha, where Russian troops killed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians; and, in an appearance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, framed the war’s stakes crisply: “The fate of the European Union and Western democracies also depends on Ukraine’s victory against those wanting to use force to trample on international law,” she said.
Her stiff spine has helped reaffirm Rome’s place in the transatlantic big leagues as a reliable partner in NATO. And her star is also rising in the Group of Seven, which will oversee Ukraine’s long-term reconstruction.
Her pragmatic dealings with Europe have also helped her cause, largely because Italy, whose enormous elderly population was decimated by covid-19, is the single biggest beneficiary of pandemic relief from the European Union. The more than $200 billion it is slated to receive would be the largest infusion of foreign aid since the Marshall Plan.
Meloni had a long history of E.U. bashing when she was in the opposition. Unsurprisingly, she has been all smiles with the bloc since taking office; Italy’s economy would flounder if the aid gusher ran dry. So far, Rome has secured about one-third of the cash, though there have been stumbles; last month Brussels froze a tranche of about $20 billion pending better compliance with its conditions. Italians have rewarded her with gradually improving poll numbers.
Still, the fates have been in Meloni’s corner. In February, Italy’s traditionally centrist Democratic Party, for many years a fixture in governments, chose a far-left politician, Elly Schlein, as its new leader. Schlein, often likened in her mannerisms and messaging savvy to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), accelerated the centrifugal drift of what had been the Italian mainstream. That’s an opportunity for Meloni to sheave off more of the center.
Any misstep could mean a quick end to her honeymoon. The average life span of Italian postwar governments is 14 months; her governing coalition partners are allies of convenience who might turn on her if they see an opening. Her best chance for a full five-year term would be a strong showing for Brothers of Italy in next year’s European Parliament elections — in effect, a midterm referendum on her performance and efforts to detoxify the radical right. If she can pull that off, she might hold office for many more panettones.
