How Giorgia Meloni is remaking Europe

Italy’s first female Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, is steadily becoming the most important political leader in Europe. Some are even saying that it is her destiny to be the next Angela Merkel. If so, that would mean a dramatic change in direction for the European Union towards what she calls a confederal, instead of a federal, Europe – a Europe of sovereign nations rather than a superstate which, she told Italy’s most famous talkshow host Bruno Vespa, would ‘do less, do better’.

Meloni, 46, heads a right-wing coalition – comprising her Brothers of Italy party plus two junior partners, Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – that won a hefty majority at September’s general election. In doing so, she became the first elected prime minister in Italy since 2011. None of the previous six were leaders of a party or coalition that won an election when appointed. Four were not even MPs.

The opposition left-wing parties, meanwhile, are unable to swallow their differences to form a viable alternative coalition. The post-communist Democratic party, which came second in the election with 19 per cent of the vote, is polling just 16 per cent, whereas the popularity of Brothers of Italy is growing: it got 26 per cent of the vote at the election and is now polling 31 per cent.

Merkel’s departure in 2021 at the end of her fourth term as chancellor left a vacuum in Europe that has yet to be filled. French President Emmanuel Macron’s hopes of replacing her as the EU’s de facto leader evaporated long ago (despite the conditions for such a French takeover never having been better), and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is best known for, er, scholzing. Meloni, on the other hand, goes from strength to strength.