Giorgia Meloni is fusing populism and moderation

On September 4th she will become Italy’s longest continuously serving prime minister since Benito Mussolini

On September 4th Giorgia Meloni will become Italy’s longest continuously serving prime minister since Benito Mussolini. Her tenure is remarkable in a country where leaders tend to be as durable as gelato on a hot Rome day. Since taking office in October 2022 she has watched prime ministers in once-stable Britain, France and the Netherlands come and go. Having risen to power as a hard-right populist, she has reshaped Italian politics and put herself at its centre. For other populist-right leaders in Europe, her lesson seems clear: tacking to the middle pays off.

Having risen to power as a hard-right populist, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has reshaped Italian politics and put herself at its centre. (Isabel Infantes/Pool Reuters via)

To be sure, the position of Ms Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (FdI) party is hardly ironclad. In March voters rejected a referendum on justice reforms that she had made a personal priority. Economic growth is minimal: in the second quarter GDP rose at an annual rate of 1%, and the last of the European Union’s billions in post-covid recovery aid will soon run out. By year’s end, Italy is expected to replace Greece as the euro-zone state with the highest rate of public debt.

Meanwhile a new party has emerged on the far right, led by an ex-general, Roberto Vannacci. It has attracted defectors from the FdI’s right-wing coalition partner, the League. That has forced the prime minister to become more radical on issues ranging from migration to hunting.

Yet Ms Meloni looks less like a leader in decline than one laying the foundations for a dominant second term. She remains Italy’s most popular party leader (or “less unpopular than the others”, says Lorenzo Pregliasco, a pollster for Youtrend). Polls give the Brothers a higher share of the vote than at the 2022 election. Ms Meloni has become “the person around whom the entire political system is revolving”, says Giovanni Orsina of the LUISS University in Rome. Italo Bocchino, a former MP who belonged to the same neo-fascist youth movement as Ms Meloni, thinks she could remain on the political scene for decades.

Three things explain Ms Meloni’s political success. First, she is lucky in her opponents. The opposition is split between the progressive Democratic party (PD) and the Five Star Movement, a once ideologically heterogeneous populist movement that now strives to outflank the PD on the left. The Five Star leader, Giuseppe Conte, and the secretary of the PD, Elly Schlein, found some common ground earlier this year. But on August 2nd Mr Conte ripped the breach open, declaring his party would not support the arming of Ukraine. “The opposition is in a bloody mess,” says Mr Orsina.

The second ingredient is limited activity. Antonio Misiani, the PD’s economic spokesman, says the government’s ministers are “navigating by sight” rather than shaping a strategy. The government has invested too little political capital in reforms to raise long-term growth, argues Carlo Cottarelli, a former director of the International Monetary Fund. But reluctance to challenge vested interests is good politics in an ageing, conservative society.

That helps explain the third element in the Meloni mix: moderation. Ms Meloni’s actions in office have belied her radical rhetoric. Despite her earlier Euroscepticism, her finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, has scrupulously respected the EU’s fiscal rules. The budget deficit has dropped from over 8% of GDP during the pandemic to around 3%. Ms Meloni has crafted an effective relationship with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. She has unwaveringly supported Ukraine, defying those on the Italian right with a soft spot for Russia. And she has stood up to Donald Trump over the war in Iran and his attacks on the pope.

On migration too, her bark has been worse than her bite. The government’s immigration restrictions have sensibly left room to accommodate Italy’s need for additional labour. With little publicity, it has authorised 450,000 visas for migrants from outside the EU. It has also launched an investment plan for Africa, nominally intended to tackle the poverty that drives migrants to leave. To satisfy hard-right voters, Ms Meloni has built an expensive camp in Albania to process asylum claims outside Italy. That scheme has so far been obstructed by the courts, and the camp holds no more than 80 people. But it may now go ahead: in June the EU approved such hubs for asylum-seekers from safe countries.

Ms Meloni’s example suggests that for Europe’s populists, moderation is the key to staying in office and wielding power. But not all of them see it that way. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), Germany’s hard rightists, have radicalised ever further while rising to first place in national polls. Tino Chrupalla, the AfD’s co-leader, has vowed never to accept “Melonisation” (ie, compromise on Ukraine or migration).

Moreover, Ms Meloni herself might not govern as moderately in future. If France’s populist right wins next year’s presidential election, the EU might cease to be as much of a restraining factor. With the post-covid fund having run its course, there will be no worries about losing access to it. And the Italian prime minister has proposed an electoral reform that would give the winning alliance extra seats in parliament, cementing its majority. Should her side win the next election, due by December 2027, it could then influence who becomes Italy’s next president; the current one, the left-leaning Sergio Mattarella, has been a brake on her power. Ms Meloni also wants to introduce direct elections for prime minister. That could give her a personal authority no Italian prime minister has possessed. Not since Mussolini, anyway.

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