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EXCLUSIVE CPGNNews FEATURE

An in depth investigation into Giorgia Meloni’s political trajectory, Italy’s transformation, the rise of the new European right, and the reshaping of Italian power at the heart of Europe.

PATRICK MOISE

Geopolitical Analyst | Journalist

From Madrid, Spain | Research, analysis and reflection on Italy, Europe, contemporary political dynamics, and the transformation of European power.

CPGNNews,
CaribPulse Global News Network  September | 15, 2026.

Born in the Caribbean, Open to the World!

1414 DAYS: THE MOMENT WHEN STABILITY BECAME A POLITICAL PROGRAM

Bari, September 2026. There are moments in political life when a quiet irony emerges, one that campaign slogans can never completely erase. When a government celebrates its longevity, it is not merely celebrating the passage of time. It is implicitly asserting that time itself constitutes evidence of success. That is precisely what happened in Italy at the beginning of September, when Giorgia Meloni appeared in Bari to celebrate a record that, in any other European democracy, might seem almost administrative, but that carries historic significance in Italy: her government had become the longest serving government of the Republic since 1946, surpassing the previous record held by Silvio Berlusconi’s second government. On September 4, the counter reached 1,413 days according to Italian and international media calculations, and continued to rise after the record was broken. Meloni presented this continuity as the principal political achievement of her government, arguing that stability had helped restore confidence, strengthen the country’s financial credibility and give Italy a more assertive voice in Europe and in international affairs.

The symbolism is not secondary. Since the birth of the Republic, Italy has had 68 governments and 31 prime ministers, with an average government lifespan of roughly fourteen months. The Italian parliamentary system long produced a particular form of instability: majorities could survive several coalition changes, parties could be recomposed without the electoral balance of power being entirely overturned, and a single political cycle could experience several successive governments. This institutional instability did not necessarily mean that the Italian state was incapable of functioning, but it fostered a lasting perception of governmental fragility. Meloni’s longevity therefore comes in a context in which executive continuity has itself become a political object.

Yet one initial interpretive shortcut must be resisted. Duration is not reform. Continuity is not transformation. Nor is stability, by itself, a sufficient indicator of prosperity. It may be a necessary condition for an ambitious public policy, but it is never proof of one. A government that remains in office for four years has a considerable advantage over one that survives only a few months: it can plan, invest, reform, correct its mistakes, negotiate with its partners and embed its decisions within a long term strategy. But that advantage also creates a heavier political obligation. As time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to attribute persistent shortcomings to previous governments, inherited crises or institutional instability. The time that initially protects those in power eventually exposes their record.

That is precisely what makes Giorgia Meloni’s experience so interesting. Her government is neither the failure predicted by some of its opponents when she came to power, nor the unqualified success sometimes suggested by its own communications. It occupies a much more complex space: that of a country that has indeed regained a degree of political stability and greater financial credibility, but that remains confronted with profound structural weaknesses. The International Monetary Fund projects Italian real GDP growth at 0.5 percent in 2026, while the European Commission likewise forecasts 0.5 percent growth. The public deficit fell to 3.1 percent of GDP in 2025 and is projected to reach 2.9 percent in 2026, a significant improvement from the exceptional deficits of the pandemic and post pandemic years. Yet public debt remains exceptionally high, with the European Commission projecting 138.5 percent of GDP in 2026. Italy has therefore improved some of its fiscal balances without resolving the fundamental contradiction between very high public debt and structurally weak growth.

The labour market provides another illustration of this multilayered reality. In July 2026, Italy had approximately 24.37 million employed people, with an employment rate of 63.2 percent and an unemployment rate of 5.8 percent. Over the previous year, employment had increased by 307,000, while unemployment had declined. These figures unquestionably constitute a positive result and allow the government to argue that its economic policies have contributed to consolidating employment. But the same statistics also reveal limitations that the unemployment rate alone cannot capture. Youth unemployment still stood at 18.9 percent in July, while the inactivity rate among people aged 15 to 64 remained at 33.8 percent. Italy therefore continues to suffer from insufficient labour force participation relative to its demographic and economic needs, particularly among women and young people.

The wage question adds another dimension to the paradox. Contractual wages are rising, but their evolution must be considered within an environment marked by the inflationary shocks of recent years and accumulated delays in the renewal of numerous collective agreements. In June 2026, the contractual hourly wage index was 2.4 percent higher than a year earlier, while average hourly pay had risen by 2.6 percent during the first half of the year. At the same time, harmonised inflation reached 3.2 percent in August according to preliminary estimates. The Italian problem therefore cannot be reduced to a simplistic opposition between “rising employment” and “falling purchasing power.” It requires examining the simultaneous dynamics of wages, prices, productivity and labour force participation. It is this combination that determines households’ real capacity to improve their standard of living.

Growth reinforces this impression of stability without acceleration. National data published by Istat show that in the second quarter of 2026, Italian GDP grew by 0.2 percent compared with the previous quarter and by 1.0 percent year on year. These figures are far from indicating an economy in recession, but neither do they correspond to a phase of spectacular economic transformation. By comparison, the euro area grew by 0.6 percent in the second quarter on a quarterly basis, while the European Union grew by 0.7 percent. The gap is a reminder that Italy’s challenge is not merely economic survival, but its ability to generate sufficiently robust growth to absorb the burden of debt, finance public services, improve wages and respond to the demographic crisis.

This is where the political narrative of stability encounters its first intellectual limitation. Meloni’s Italy is not an Italy frozen in place. It has experienced significant changes, particularly in employment, migration policy, defence policy, relations with Washington, Rome’s role in the European debate and its Mediterranean strategy. But the deepest transformations, those affecting productivity, education, healthcare, public administration, demographics, wages and the territorial structure of the economy, remain much more difficult to measure. Reuters noted at the end of August that several of the government’s major institutional reforms had encountered significant obstacles, while measures relating to security and public order had enjoyed greater success. The difference between the ability to legislate rapidly on certain issues and the difficulty of transforming the deeper structures of the state is one of the central threads running through the Meloni record.

The institutional dimension must also be considered. Meloni came to power with the implicit promise of delivering not merely a new majority but a new political architecture. Strengthening the role of the prime minister, judicial reform and differentiated autonomy were among the major initiatives that could have durably altered the balance of the Republic. Yet several of these projects have been slowed, challenged or partially undermined. The judicial reform was rejected in a referendum, while the proposal to strengthen directly the powers of the prime minister encountered serious parliamentary and political obstacles. The Constitutional Court also curtailed certain elements of the regional autonomy reform. The government has therefore obtained something Italian governments rarely obtain: time, without yet demonstrating that it can convert that time into an institutional overhaul of comparable magnitude.

Migration policy presents a different contradiction. On this issue, Meloni has unquestionably shifted the centre of the debate. The reduction in irregular arrivals, agreements with transit countries, cooperation with Tunisia and Libya, and the controversial experiment involving centres in Albania have helped reshape the Italian debate and, to some extent, the European one. Border control is no longer presented merely as an Italian response to a Mediterranean crisis; it has become part of a broader European debate over the externalisation of procedures, transit countries and the capacity of states to control their borders. But this strategy has also placed Rome at the centre of legal and humanitarian controversies, particularly when Italian courts challenged certain government measures. Here again, the record can only be understood by holding together the political effectiveness claimed by the government and the legal constraints it faces.

The international dimension completes the picture. The Meloni of 2026 is difficult to compare with the Fratelli d’Italia leader who, only a few years earlier, was constructing her political identity in opposition. Her government has chosen a clear Atlantic orientation, supported Ukraine, maintained a close relationship with Washington and sought to make the broader Mediterranean a strategic space for Italy. This orientation has helped reassure several Western partners who initially questioned the arrival in power of a leader emerging from the radical right. But international normalisation does not mean the disappearance of ideological conflict. Meloni remains a conservative leader who has made national sovereignty, security, the family and migration control essential elements of her political identity. Her evolution is therefore not one of abandoning her origins, but of adapting those origins to the requirements of governing a major European democracy.

This may be what best explains the government’s longevity. Meloni understood that a national right could not govern Italy sustainably while remaining trapped in a permanent posture of opposition. It had to become governmental without completely losing what constituted its identity. It had to reassure the markets without abandoning its social and national discourse. It had to work with Brussels without renouncing sovereignty. It had to remain close to Washington without reducing Italian foreign policy to alignment with the United States. It had to control migration without ignoring the constraints of European and Italian law. Finally, it had to maintain a coalition made up of different political sensitivities while preserving the predominance of Fratelli d’Italia.

This capacity for adaptation is probably Giorgia Meloni’s true political achievement. She transformed a formation that had once been peripheral into a central force within the Italian political system and demonstrated that a leader emerging from the post fascist right could become a recognised interlocutor of European institutions and the principal Western capitals. Yet this achievement also contains a historical question. The more Meloni has normalised herself abroad, the more she has had to answer an internal question: how far can normalisation go without altering the political substance that enabled her rise?

As the 2027 elections approach, this question becomes even more important. The stability that once constituted a promise has now become a record to defend. Voters will no longer have to decide merely whether they want to preserve a stable government. They will have to judge what that government has produced during the exceptional amount of time at its disposal. Growth, wages, demographics, public services, debt, migration, institutions and Italy’s international position will then be examined together, no longer as separate files but as different dimensions of the same political experience.

Giorgia Meloni’s record is therefore real, historic and politically significant. But it does not yet answer the essential question. It demonstrates that an Italian government can endure. What remains to be demonstrated is whether it can use that longevity to change the country profoundly.

It is from this tension that the real story of Giorgia Meloni begins: not the story of a politician who succeeded in remaining in power, but that of a government whose longevity now imposes a far more demanding responsibility, namely to prove that stability was not merely a method of retaining power, but the means of producing a lasting transformation of Italy.

ITALY CHANGES GEAR

1. A REPUBLIC BUILT ON INSTABILITY

To understand what Giorgia Meloni’s longevity actually represents, one must begin with a fact that may appear almost banal when reduced to a statistic, but becomes far more significant when placed within Italy’s political history. Since the birth of the Republic in 1946, Italy has experienced a succession of governments rapid enough for instability to become part of the country’s political culture. Reuters notes that, over eight decades, the Republic has seen 68 governments. The comparison with the current government is therefore particularly striking: the government sworn in on October 22, 2022, crossed the threshold in September 2026 that made it the longest serving government in the history of the Italian Republic, surpassing Silvio Berlusconi’s second government, which lasted 1,412 days.

This succession never meant that Italy was incapable of governing. That would be too simplistic an interpretation of its history. The country produced governments capable of adopting major reforms, conducting profound economic transformations, contributing to European integration and playing a decisive role in international affairs. It also experienced periods of remarkable political continuity within certain coalitions or under particular prime ministers. Yet the institutional and partisan mechanics of the Italian Republic long favoured realignments, complex coalitions, changes in parliamentary majorities and transitional governments. The relatively short average lifespan of governments consequently created a political culture in which the ability to survive a crisis could sometimes become almost as important as the ability to transform the state.

It is precisely this tradition that Giorgia Meloni has interrupted. Her government has not merely become older than those immediately preceding it; it has transformed longevity itself into a political argument. Stability is no longer presented as a fortunate consequence of the 2022 electoral victory. Within the governing majority’s discourse, it has become an achievement in its own right. In Bari, while celebrating the record, Meloni explicitly defended the idea that the continuity of her government had helped restore Italy’s financial credibility, strengthen its European and international position and pursue an economic policy without the constant ruptures that had characterised part of the country’s recent history.

This transformation of time into a political argument deserves to be taken seriously. It is not merely the communications strategy of a party seeking to celebrate a symbolic achievement. It touches on a much deeper question in contemporary democracy: what should a government produce when it finally possesses the political time that its predecessors lacked? Does stability make it possible to govern better, or does it merely make it possible to govern longer? The question is essential because duration has no political value in itself. A government can be fragile and reformist. It can be stable and immobile. It can endure because it is carrying out profound transformation, but it can also endure because it avoids decisions likely to provoke major conflicts with part of society, the coalition or the electorate. This is where the real examination of the Meloni record begins. The record is indisputable. Its interpretation is not.

2. THE MELONI RECORD AND THE END OF AN ITALIAN EXCEPTION?

The particularity of the current moment becomes even clearer when one considers the trajectory of Italian governments since the Second World War. The Meloni government was formed after the 2022 elections by a coalition dominated by Fratelli d’Italia and including Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Forza Italia, now led by Antonio Tajani following the death of Silvio Berlusconi. This coalition has weathered internal disagreements, political tensions and differences over several European and international issues without experiencing the governmental rupture that might have appeared plausible in such a fragmented system.

This ability to remain together is probably one of Giorgia Meloni’s most important political achievements. It should not be underestimated. Leading a right wing coalition composed of different political traditions requires constant balancing among the interests of the dominant party, the ambitions of its partners, the expectations of voters and European constraints. Fratelli d’Italia carries a history rooted in the national and post fascist right; the Lega retains an older tradition of sovereigntism and opposition to centralisation from Rome; while Forza Italia represents a liberal and pro European right built around Berlusconi’s legacy. The coalition is therefore not naturally homogeneous. Its survival depends both on Meloni’s dominant position and on her partners’ awareness of the political cost that a rupture would entail.

This stability has also been facilitated by an electoral reality: Fratelli d’Italia has remained the coalition’s leading party, and Meloni has succeeded in occupying a sufficiently broad political space to prevent, thus far, the emergence of a right wing alternative capable of replacing her. Yet this balance is now being subjected to new pressures. The emergence and growth of Futuro Nazionale around former General Roberto Vannacci introduce competition further to the right on issues such as immigration, security, national identity and criticism of certain European policies. Reuters noted at the end of August 2026 that this new force could contribute to further fragmenting the conservative space ahead of the 2027 elections.

The paradox is therefore intriguing. Meloni has succeeded in stabilising the Italian right at precisely the moment when it has begun to generate new competition to her right. Her longevity could therefore create the conditions for a future realignment of the camp she leads. Power always transforms the coalitions that sustain it. The longer a government lasts, the more its allies begin calculating what comes after the government. Government loyalty remains real, but it gradually becomes conditional upon the prospect of the next electoral deadline.

Italy has therefore not necessarily escaped its old logic of instability. It may simply have postponed the moment when that instability reappears. As long as the coalition remains electorally competitive, stability remains a resource. If internal balances of power change, that same stability can become a source of accumulated tensions.

That is why the record should be read not as the definitive end of Italian instability, but as a new political experiment. For the first time in a long while, an Italian government has enough time to be judged not merely on its ability to respond to immediate crises, but on the coherence of a long term national strategy. That difference is crucial.

3. WHEN DURATION BECOMES A PROGRAM

In parliamentary democracies, political time is a resource. It allows a government to prepare a reform, negotiate its substance, absorb its political cost and measure its effects. A government that falls after a few months generally does not possess that capacity. It can announce, but it cannot always implement. It can begin a reform, but it does not necessarily have time to assume its consequences. Stability can therefore be a condition for transformation. But it is not proof of transformation.

This distinction lies at the heart of the Italian case. Giorgia Meloni now possesses an argument that none of her recent predecessors could deploy with the same force: she has had time. A great deal of time. She has weathered a succession of international crises, the war in Ukraine, energy tensions, upheavals in the global trading system, changes of political majority in Washington, European debates over migration, budgetary difficulties and social tensions without losing control of her government. This continuity gives her a considerable political advantage when she argues that her government has delivered something Italy has long awaited: predictability.

Financial markets appear to have assigned some value to that predictability. Recent analyses of Italy’s economic trajectory highlight improvements in certain fiscal indicators and a reduction in the political and financial cost associated with an Italy perceived as unstable. The government can also point to employment growth and falling unemployment as elements of a more favourable record than the weakness of economic growth might sometimes suggest.

Yet stability does not automatically resolve structural problems. It does not create productivity by itself. It does not make an ageing population younger. It does not mechanically restore purchasing power lost during the years of inflation. It does not necessarily modernise public services. It does not turn a slow administration into an efficient one. It does not reduce a high public debt merely because a government remains in office. Nor does it guarantee that a complex institutional reform will be adopted, implemented and sustained.

The criticisms directed at the Meloni government focus precisely on this difference between stability and transformation. Reuters noted at the end of August that several of the major institutional reforms envisaged by the governing majority had encountered significant obstacles, while measures in the areas of public order, immigration and security had achieved greater success. Judicial reform was rejected by referendum, the proposal aimed at directly strengthening the position of the head of government did not succeed, and the regional autonomy project was weakened by Constitutional Court decisions.

This reality does not allow us to conclude that the government has failed. It simply requires a more demanding standard for evaluating its record. If stability is its principal achievement, then the question must be what that stability has made possible that the instability of previous decades made impossible. This is the question that will now accompany every analysis of the Meloni era.

4. STABILITY, CONTINUITY AND TRANSFORMATION: THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF POWER

There is a fundamental difference between remaining in power, governing sustainably and transforming a country. The three realities may coincide, but they are not synonymous. Remaining in power is first and foremost a matter of electoral and parliamentary politics. It means preserving a majority, maintaining a coalition, managing crises and preventing a political event from overturning the balance of power. Governing sustainably requires more. It means organising the state, establishing priorities, producing compromises, protecting social cohesion and preserving the confidence of economic and institutional actors. Transforming a country represents another scale altogether. It involves changing the structures that determine growth, demographics, education, justice, healthcare, productivity, public administration, relations between territories and the country’s place in the international system.

The Meloni government has unquestionably demonstrated its ability to remain in power. It has also demonstrated a genuine capacity to govern over time. The more difficult question concerns the third level. Italy needed stability, but it also needed growth. It needed fiscal credibility, but it also needed more dynamic wages. It needed more effective border control, but at the same time it had to confront a demographic crisis that makes migration far more complex than a simple security issue. It needed a stable coalition, but it also had to modernise its administration, strengthen public services and reduce the gaps between the North and the Mezzogiorno.

That is why the record cannot be built around a single indicator. The number of days in office measures stability. The deficit measures one dimension of fiscal discipline. The employment rate measures one part of labour market dynamics. The number of irregular arrivals measures one aspect of migration policy effectiveness. But none of these indicators, taken individually, can tell us whether Italy has become more productive, more prosperous, more cohesive or better able to prepare for its future. The real test is systemic.

It consists in observing whether the different parts of the country are moving forward together. Employment can rise while wages remain weak. The deficit can fall while growth remains insufficient. A better international image can coexist with strained public services. A more restrictive migration policy can coexist with labour shortages. A politically stable coalition can coexist with difficulty in adopting the institutional reforms that were announced. Meloni’s Italy is particularly interesting precisely because it brings several of these contradictions together.

5. THE REAL TEST BEGINS NOW

The paradox of the record is that it does not close the record of performance. It makes that record harder to avoid. During the first months of a government, some difficulties can be attributed to the legacy of the previous administration. After one year, the government can still invoke external crises. After two years, it can explain certain delays through institutional complexity. After three years, it can point to the scale of European and international constraints. But when a government reaches nearly four years of uninterrupted continuity, political responsibility changes in nature. It becomes progressively impossible to explain everything through inherited circumstances.

Duration then creates a particular obligation: the obligation to answer for one’s own choices. This is probably the most important point of the Meloni period. Her government can no longer be evaluated as a recent experiment of the Italian right. It must now be evaluated as a government that has enjoyed an exceptional amount of historical time in which to act. The symbolic threshold of 1,413 days therefore transforms the very framework through which its performance is judged.

The Italian debate is thus entering a second phase. The first question was whether Giorgia Meloni could endure. That question has now been answered. The second is what she has done with that time. And this second question is far more demanding. It leads directly to the personal and political trajectory of the leader who made this continuity possible. For in order to understand why a woman emerging from the Italian radical right succeeded in reaching the centre of power and then remaining there, one must return to Giorgia Meloni’s trajectory, the transformation of her political language, her relationship with institutions and the way in which she progressively shifted the boundary between the radical right and the governing right. This is where the Meloni phenomenon truly begins.

GIORGIA MELONI: FROM THE MARGINS TO THE CENTER OF POWER

6. A POLITICAL CHILDHOOD IN AN ITALY OF DIVISIONS

Giorgia Meloni did not reach the summit of Italian politics through the traditional path of the administrative, academic, or economic elites. Her trajectory began in another political world, that of Rome’s activist right, in an Italy still deeply marked by the ideological confrontations of the second half of the twentieth century. She joined the youth movement of the Movimento Sociale Italiano in the early 1990s, while still a teenager, in a political environment that remained directly connected to the history of Italian fascism through organizational and symbolic lineage. A few years later, this young activist would become a member of parliament, then a minister, before taking the leadership of Fratelli d’Italia and, in 2022, becoming the first woman to lead the Italian government. This progression is all the more remarkable because it did not follow a steady rise through an established major party. Rather, it reflected the gradual transformation of a political current that had long remained on the margins into a force capable of reaching the center of republican power.

To understand Meloni, it is therefore necessary to avoid a common mistake: viewing her arrival at Palazzo Chigi as a sudden rupture in Italian political history. On the contrary, it was the culmination of a long transformation of the Italian national right. The Movimento Sociale Italiano was founded in 1946 by former fascist officials and remained for a long time confined to the periphery of the political system. The transformation initiated with Alleanza Nazionale, followed by the creation of Fratelli d’Italia in 2012, gradually shifted this political family toward a form of conservative national right seeking to become compatible with the exercise of power within the Republic. Recent academic research on Fratelli d’Italia describes precisely this evolution as a combination of historical continuity and strategic innovation. The party retained some markers of its history while adapting its program, organization, and communication to a much broader electorate.

This genealogy does not, of course, mean that the Meloni government is simply a continuation of historical fascism in another form. Such an equivalence would be historically and politically too crude. Contemporary Italy remains a parliamentary democracy founded on a Constitution born from the Resistance, with institutional separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and a pluralist system. Meloni governs within this framework and built her electoral legitimacy inside it. But the political history of her party remains an essential element in understanding the debates surrounding her. It explains, in particular, why every gesture of normalization, every position on fascism, every relationship with national memory, and every conflict with institutions is observed with particular attention both in Italy and abroad. The question is therefore not whether Italy in 2026 is identical to the Italy of the fascist era. It obviously is not. The more serious question is how a political tradition that emerged from the radical periphery succeeded in becoming institutionalized without entirely losing the identity elements that contributed to its electoral success.

7. FROM MARGINALITY TO FIRST PLACE

The electoral trajectory of Fratelli d’Italia makes it possible to measure the scale of this transformation. When Giorgia Meloni founded the party in 2012 with other figures from the national right, her organization represented only a secondary force within the Italian political landscape. In the 2013 general election, Fratelli d’Italia received less than 2% of the vote. Five years later, in 2018, the party reached approximately 4.3%. In 2022, it obtained approximately 26% of the vote and became the leading force in the new parliamentary majority. In a single decade, the movement therefore moved from the electoral periphery to the leadership of government.

This progression was not solely the result of personalization around Meloni. It reflected a broader realignment of the Italian right. Forza Italia had long occupied the dominant space on the right under Silvio Berlusconi. Matteo Salvini’s Lega subsequently experienced spectacular national expansion, gradually abandoning its former regionalist identity to become a sovereigntist and anti immigration force capable of directly competing with the other components of the right. When these two forces began to lose some of their ability to attract voters, Fratelli d’Italia possessed a particular advantage: the party had not participated in previous governments and could therefore present itself as an alternative to the established political system as a whole.

This position in opposition proved particularly valuable. During the coalition governments that followed one another before 2022, Meloni was able to criticize the compromises imposed on her competitors while building an image of consistency. She could denounce government decisions without having to bear their direct political cost. She could advocate a tougher line on immigration, national sovereignty, and certain cultural issues without immediately facing all the diplomatic, budgetary, and institutional constraints associated with the exercise of power.

This situation produced a classic phenomenon of contemporary democracies: the party outside government gradually accumulates the political capital that governing parties spend while governing. But Meloni did more than simply benefit from this mechanism. For years, she worked to broaden her electorate without abandoning the identity elements that had enabled her party to maintain a strongly mobilized activist base.

The result of 2022 was therefore less a sudden explosion than a long accumulation. When Italians went to the polls in September 2022, Fratelli d’Italia was no longer a small protest party. It had become the principal beneficiary of the relative collapse of several older political balances. Meloni did not merely win an election. She reclaimed part of the political space left vacant by Berlusconi’s decline, the weakening of the Lega, and the fragmentation of the center left. This ability to become the point of convergence for a plural right largely explains why her government has been able to survive for so long.

8. THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT

Giorgia Meloni’s rise to power also possesses a historical dimension that extends beyond her political affiliation. In October 2022, she became the first woman to hold the office of President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic. The fact is often summarized in a simple formula, but its significance is greater than it may initially appear in a country where women’s representation at the highest levels of the state and government had long progressed more slowly than in several other European democracies.

The female dimension of her trajectory, however, does not represent a rupture with the conservative political culture of her party. Meloni has built a significant part of her discourse around family, motherhood, national identity, and cultural continuity. She has also made her own trajectory an important element of her political narrative. Meloni’s “I” has become a particularly powerful communication instrument: a woman from a marginal political environment, raised in a working class part of Rome, who began her political engagement at a very young age and ultimately reached the highest office in government.

This personalization partly explains the strength of her relationship with her electorate. Meloni has never presented herself solely as the representative of a doctrine. She has also presented herself as someone who has personally experienced the difficulties she describes. Her political style is direct, highly oral, and often built around easily memorable formulations. This ability to transform complex political positions into personal narratives has contributed to creating a particular relationship with part of the population.

But this personalization also contains a risk. The more a government identifies with its leader, the more difficult it becomes to separate the government’s record from the leader’s personal record. The stability of the coalition becomes Meloni’s stability. Italy’s international credibility becomes, in part, Meloni’s credibility. Economic achievements become Meloni’s achievements, while social and institutional difficulties may also become directly associated with her leadership. This personalization explains why an assessment of the government can never be completely separated from the evolution of its leader. Meloni has not simply changed the Italian right. Power has also transformed her.

9. FROM RADICALISM TO NORMALIZATION

The central question surrounding her trajectory may lie precisely in this transformation. How could a political leader emerging from the radical right become a credible interlocutor for European institutions, Western governments, financial markets, and the American administration without abandoning the identity based themes that had contributed to her success?

The answer is neither a complete conversion to moderate politics nor a simple concealment of her initial positions. It lies instead in a form of selective pragmatism. Meloni has retained a distinctly conservative line on several domestic policy issues, particularly immigration, family, security, and national identity. At the same time, since entering government she has adopted a much more pragmatic attitude toward the European Union and international institutions than some observers had anticipated before 2022. On Ukraine, she has also adopted a firm position in favor of European and Western support for Kyiv. Her relationship with Washington has been framed within an alliance logic rather than through confrontation with Western institutions.

This evolution has profoundly changed Meloni’s international image. Before she came to power, some European capitals feared that a government led by Fratelli d’Italia would continue the approach of European forces that were more openly hostile to Brussels. The first years of her government produced a more complex reality. Meloni sought to build a functional relationship with the European Commission, preserve Rome’s financial credibility, and present herself as a conservative leader capable of working within European institutions rather than seeking to overturn them.

This strategy had a considerable effect. It allowed Meloni to shift the boundary between what was considered a radical right and what could be accepted as a governing right. Her experience became, in this respect, a European laboratory. The question was no longer merely whether the radical right could win an election. It became whether it could govern without creating the rupture with national and European institutions that its opponents had long feared.

But this normalization has its own contradictions. A leader can moderate her institutional behavior without abandoning part of her ideological program. She can be pragmatic on European policy while retaining a highly demanding conception of national sovereignty. She can support Ukraine while defending a conservative vision of European identity. She can work with the institutions in Brussels while criticizing certain directions taken by the European Union. She can accept the rules of the system while seeking to shift its political boundaries.

This is why the term “normalization” must be used with caution. Meloni has normalized herself on certain fronts. On others, she has helped normalize positions that were previously considered more peripheral. The movement therefore works in two directions. She has moved closer to the institutional center, but she has also contributed to shifting the political center to the right.

10. THE PARADOX OF A RIGHT WING ENTERING THE SYSTEM

Meloni’s trajectory therefore reveals a particularly important paradox for understanding contemporary European politics. A political force can enter the system without necessarily becoming identical to the forces that previously dominated that system. It can learn to use institutions, master their codes, and engage with their actors while retaining part of its original identity.

Fratelli d’Italia illustrates precisely this phenomenon. Recent academic research describes the party as a formation whose history remains connected to the post fascist tradition, but which has simultaneously developed a governing strategy and organizational structures sufficiently robust to establish itself durably within Italian politics. The party emphasizes nation, family, security, sovereignty, and identity while seeking to present these themes in a language compatible with the institutional exercise of power.

This evolution raises a question that extends far beyond Italy. What happens to a democracy when former marginal forces no longer seek to overthrow the system but instead seek to conquer it from within? The question differs from that of a classic return of extremism openly hostile to institutions. It concerns rather the ability of institutions to absorb political forces that formally accept the democratic framework while seeking to modify the cultural, institutional, and political balances that structure it.

The Italian experience is particularly instructive because Meloni did not need to break with the European Union, NATO, or the parliamentary system in order to impose a new political orientation. Her influence was exercised precisely because she accepted part of the system’s constraints while seeking to modify its content.

This also explains the diversity of judgments surrounding her. For some observers, her pragmatism represents evidence of political maturity and demonstrates that a radical right can transform itself into a responsible governing right. For others, this interpretation underestimates the ideological continuity of certain domestic policies and the way in which the government uses migration, security, and cultural issues to gradually shift the norms of public debate. Recent international analyses have highlighted precisely this tension between institutionalization, governmental pragmatism, and the preservation of a strongly conservative political identity.

The question therefore cannot be settled by a simple label. Meloni is neither exactly the activist she was at the beginning of her career nor a conventional centrist. She is the product of a political transformation that has enabled her to retain part of her identity while profoundly adapting the instruments through which she exercises power.

11. POWER ALSO CHANGES THE PERSON WHO HOLDS IT

This may be where the most human dimension of her trajectory can be found. Meloni’s transformation is often discussed as a conscious political strategy, but prolonged access to power also transforms the person who exercises it. The activist who could speak on behalf of a political minority no longer enjoys the same freedom when she represents a country of nearly sixty million inhabitants, a major euro area economy, a founding member of the European Union, a G7 power, and a central United States ally in the Mediterranean. Opposition allows choices to be simplified. Government makes them more complex.

When she was in opposition, Meloni could defend a political line in terms of principle. In government, she must arbitrate between principles and available resources, between electoral promises and budgetary constraints, between the expectations of her voters and those of European partners, between security imperatives and legal obligations, and between national sovereignty and international commitments. This transformation is visible in her European policy, in her relationship with Washington, and in her position on Ukraine. It also appears in the way her government has sought economic credibility compatible with the constraints of the euro area.

Power has therefore produced a form of duality in Meloni. On one side, she remains the leader of a party that draws part of its strength from a conservative conception of nation, family, and authority. On the other, she must perform a function that requires compromise, predictability, and international responsibility.

This duality is not necessarily a weakness. It may constitute her principal political strength. It allows her to speak simultaneously to an activist base seeking cultural rupture and to institutions seeking continuity of the state. It allows her to maintain a sovereigntist discourse while negotiating with Brussels. It allows her to defend a restrictive migration policy while seeking agreements with Mediterranean partners. Finally, it allows her to construct an image of a conservative yet institutional leader.

But this strategy also reaches its limits. The more Meloni becomes institutionalized, the more some of her electorate may accuse her of having become too pragmatic. The more she maintains a hard line on certain issues, the more her opponents may accuse her of shifting democratic norms. The more successfully she occupies the center of power, the more responsible she becomes for the problems she denounced when she was in opposition. Success therefore creates a new vulnerability: accountability.

12. THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS OPEN

After four years in power, the question is ultimately no longer whether Giorgia Meloni has changed. She has changed. Her party has changed. The Italian right has changed. And, to some extent, the relationship between the European right and European institutions has also changed. The question is how far this transformation can go without creating a contradiction between the different components of her project.

A right wing that wants to remain in power over the long term must reassure markets, preserve its alliances, maintain a functional relationship with Brussels, and convince a portion of moderate voters. But a right wing that also owes its rise to anger toward elites, feelings of decline, demands for sovereignty, and rejection of certain cultural changes cannot completely abandon the themes that built its identity. Meloni therefore governs within this narrow space.

This is precisely what makes her experience important for Europe. It is not simply the personal story of a woman who became prime minister. It constitutes a case study in how a political force emerging from the ideological periphery can transform itself into a governing force and then use government to redefine the boundaries of political debate without formally breaking with the existing institutional order.

The real issue of this dossier now becomes clearer. The question is not merely whether Giorgia Meloni has abandoned the radicalism of her early years. It would be more accurate to ask what she has retained from it, what she has transformed, and what she has succeeded in having accepted as a new political normality.

This distinction will be essential when we turn to her economic record. For this is where the political narrative encounters the most difficult reality to circumvent: employment figures, wages, productivity, debt, growth, purchasing power, and the state’s capacity to invest.

A leader can transform her country’s image. She can change the language of politics. She can stabilize a coalition and reshape the balance of power in Europe. But after four years, she must also answer a much less symbolic and far more concrete question: what has this stability actually produced in the economic and social lives of Italians?

THE ECONOMIC RECORD: STABILIZATION IS NOT TRANSFORMATION

13. FINANCIAL CREDIBILITY AS THE FIRST POLITICAL CAPITAL

When an Italian government takes office, it does not merely assume responsibility for managing a major euro area economy. It also inherits a budgetary constraint that considerably limits its room for maneuver. Italy has one of the highest levels of public debt among advanced economies, an aging population, limited potential growth, and significant exposure to changes in interest rates, energy prices, and the European economic cycle. In this context, the first economic achievement Giorgia Meloni could reasonably seek was not a spectacular acceleration of growth, but a lasting restoration of confidence. On this front, her government has a record that deserves to be taken seriously, even if it cannot be confused with a structural transformation of the economy.

Public finances have indeed improved since 2022. The general government deficit fell to 3.1% of GDP in 2025, while the primary balance, that is, the budget balance before interest payments on the debt, returned to positive territory at 0.8% of GDP. The International Monetary Fund considers that this consolidation contributed to strengthening market confidence. But this improvement must be examined with analytical discipline: the deficit declined while public debt still stood at approximately 137% of GDP at the end of 2025. In other words, Italy improved its budgetary flow without yet resolving its debt stock problem. The progress is real, but the fundamental constraint remains.

The European Commission’s forecasts confirm this ambivalence. The deficit is expected to continue declining to 2.9% of GDP in both 2026 and 2027, placing Italy’s public finances on a trajectory more compatible with European rules. But public debt is not expected to decline at the same pace. It is estimated at 138.5% of GDP in 2026 and 139.2% in 2027. The situation is therefore very different from that of a country that has genuinely regained fiscal capacity. Italy has greater credibility, but it still does not possess substantial financial freedom. This distinction is essential for understanding Meloni’s entire economic policy: her government may appear more stable in the eyes of markets while remaining constrained by a debt burden that severely limits the amount of new spending it could finance without offsetting measures.

This budgetary discipline also has a political dimension. Giorgia Meloni came to power with a reputation built within a right wing that had long criticized certain European constraints, particularly when they were perceived as being imposed by Brussels on national governments. Once at Palazzo Chigi, however, she understood that financial credibility was one of the conditions of her political freedom. The relationship between Rome, Brussels, and the markets could not be treated as a simple ideological confrontation. The size of Italy’s debt, the weight of interest payments, and Italy’s position within the euro area made a degree of pragmatism necessary. Meloni’s political transformation, already visible on the European and international stages, finds an especially concrete expression here: governing means accepting certain constraints that opposition makes it easier to challenge.

It would nevertheless be excessive to attribute the entire improvement solely to government action. The evolution of public finances also depends on economic conditions, tax revenues, nominal growth, European decisions, investments under the recovery plan, and factors that extend beyond the direct choices of Palazzo Chigi. The government can influence these variables, accelerate certain reforms, and alter the composition of spending, but it does not control the economic environment alone. This qualification matters because Meloni’s record must be measured not against an imaginary economy that began with her arrival, but against the trends that existed before October 2022 and the constraints that will continue after her departure.

14. THE PARADOX OF AN ECONOMY EMPLOYING MORE PEOPLE BUT GENERATING LITTLE GROWTH

The labor market is probably one of the areas where the government’s record can be presented with the greatest confidence. In July 2026, Italy had approximately 24.37 million employed people. The employment rate reached 63.2% and the unemployment rate had fallen to 5.8%. Over one year, the number of employed people had increased by 307,000, or 1.3%, while the employment rate had risen by 0.8 percentage points. The composition of this increase nevertheless deserves examination: permanent employment rose by 303,000 people over one year and self employment by 85,000, while temporary employment declined by 82,000. The Italian labor market is therefore not merely creating more jobs; it is also experiencing a relative consolidation of stable employment.

This development is a positive element in Meloni’s record, but it must be placed within a longer chronology. The improvement in the Italian labor market did not begin in 2022. Istat shows that between 2021 and 2026, the employment rate increased and unemployment declined as part of a broader trend of recovery and labor market transformation. A significant share of employment growth concerns workers aged 50 to 64, whose employment rate increased by 7.8 percentage points over the period. Istat links this development in part to population aging and pension reforms. This means that current figures are favorable, but they cannot honestly be presented as the exclusive product of policies pursued since 2022.

Another figure deserves attention: youth unemployment remained at 18.9% in July 2026, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. The labor market can therefore display historically low overall unemployment while retaining a structural difficulty for younger generations. This difference between the general figure and the situation of young people is important for understanding why the economic perception of a government can diverge from macroeconomic indicators. A fifty or sixty year old person who retains permanent employment does not experience the same reality as a twenty five year old graduate facing precarious contracts, relatively low entry level wages, or the need to move to another region or abroad to find a career matching their training.

The paradox becomes even clearer when growth is examined. The Italian economy did grow in 2025, but by only 0.5% in real terms. The International Monetary Fund forecasts growth of 0.5% in both 2026 and 2027. The European Commission arrives at a practically identical estimate for 2026 and a slightly higher one for 2027, at 0.6%. In the second quarter of 2026, Italian GDP increased by 0.2% compared with the previous quarter, while the carryover growth for the year as a whole reached 0.8%. The economy is therefore not contracting; it is moving forward. But it is moving too slowly to rapidly alter the major structural relationships between debt, productivity, income, and aging.

This is where the distinction between stabilization and transformation becomes indispensable. An economy can create jobs, reduce its deficit, maintain market confidence, and continue growing without resolving its fundamental weaknesses. The Meloni government can legitimately claim improvements in certain indicators, but it would be much more difficult to demonstrate that it has already changed Italy’s growth potential. The IMF specifically considers that medium term prospects remain constrained by the rapid aging of the population and persistently weak productivity. The central economic question is therefore no longer simply how many Italians are working, but how much value the Italian economy is capable of producing with its available labor force and capital.

15. THE GREAT BLIND SPOT: WAGES AND PURCHASING POWER

It is probably in the area of incomes that the difference between macroeconomic figures and citizens’ daily experience becomes most visible. A country can report low unemployment and better managed public finances while leaving part of its population with the feeling that economic improvement is not translating sufficiently into everyday life. Italy is experiencing precisely this tension. Contractual wages are increasing, but at a pace that must be compared with prices and with the losses accumulated during previous years.

In June 2026, the index of contractual hourly wages had increased by 2.4% year on year and by 0.5% compared with the previous month. During the first six months of the year, contractual hourly wages had risen by 2.6% compared with the same period in 2025. But Istat simultaneously reported that, at the end of June, 25 national collective bargaining agreements were still awaiting renewal, covering approximately 3.9 million employees. In the public sector, all agreements had expired with respect to the determination of wages. The wage growth figure must therefore be interpreted cautiously: it describes a nominal increase in wages determined by agreements currently in force, but it does not mean that all workers simultaneously received an equivalent pay adjustment.

This distinction is particularly important after the years of inflation that followed the pandemic and European energy shocks. When prices rise rapidly, a nominal wage increase may not be sufficient to immediately restore lost purchasing power. Istat estimated harmonized inflation at 3.2% year on year in Italy in August 2026, compared with 3.3% across the euro area. The acceleration was driven in particular by energy prices. The Italian government obviously cannot determine global energy prices or the geopolitical conditions influencing them, but it must manage their consequences for households and businesses. It is precisely at this level that economic policy ceases to be an abstract question of deficits and debt and becomes a question of purchasing power.

The debate over wages also reveals an older weakness in the Italian economy. The country does not merely need to negotiate better wages; it must increase the value produced per hour of work. Sustainable wage growth cannot indefinitely rely on redistributing wealth that is itself growing slowly. It must be supported by greater productivity, more investment, better diffusion of technologies, a more efficient administration, appropriate training, and a greater ability among businesses to move up the value chain. This is precisely the problem that GDP figures sometimes make less visible: when productivity grows slowly, real wages have less room to rise sustainably without reducing corporate margins or worsening other imbalances.

The Meloni government therefore faces a political difficulty that cannot be resolved through a simple opposition between workers and businesses. The real challenge is to rebuild an economic mechanism in which investment and productivity generate greater value, which can then translate into lasting improvements in wages. Public transfers can cushion shocks and tax reductions can support certain incomes, but they do not replace a growth strategy. If Italy wants to durably improve the living standards of its citizens, it must address the much more difficult problem of productivity.

16. PRODUCTIVITY, THE PROBLEM THAT AN EMPLOYMENT RECORD CANNOT SOLVE

Productivity is one of the least spectacular elements of Italy’s political debate and yet one of the most decisive. It does not produce the same images as falling unemployment or a European summit, but it largely determines a country’s ability to raise wages, finance public services, reduce its debt, and preserve living standards in the face of aging. The IMF considers persistently weak productivity to be one of the main constraints weighing on Italy’s growth prospects. Structural reforms, digitalization, adoption of new technologies, improvement of human capital, and public sector efficiency are therefore at the heart of the problem.

The Italian paradox is particularly clear. The country can have more people in employment while still having relatively weak potential growth. This means that increasing the number of workers alone is not enough to create a more dynamic economy. Italy must also improve the quality of jobs, firms’ capacity for innovation, the diffusion of technologies, and the performance of its physical and digital infrastructure. Above all, it must confront a working age population that, without migration and without increased participation among women and young people, risks shrinking as large generations reach retirement.

The issue of participation is central here. The IMF emphasizes that labor force participation remains below that of many comparable countries, particularly among women and young people. This means that part of Italy’s potential growth lies in human resources that already exist but remain insufficiently integrated into the formal economy. Increasing female participation, improving young people’s integration into employment, and strengthening compatibility between work and family life are therefore not merely social policies. They are also growth policies.

The same reasoning applies to digital transformation and artificial intelligence. Italy has a significant industrial base, an especially dense network of small and medium sized enterprises, and internationally recognized sectors of excellence. But national productivity depends on the ability of these firms to adopt available technologies and transform them into real efficiency gains. The potential exists, but exploiting it requires investment, skills, digital infrastructure, and an administration capable of supporting the transition. The IMF also considers that faster productivity gains resulting from reforms, digitalization, and the adoption of new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, could become an important factor in accelerating growth.

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan therefore plays a considerable role in this perspective. Investments associated with the NRRP contributed to supporting Italian growth in 2025 and continue to play a role in forecasts for 2026 and 2027. But once again, the volume of available funds is not in itself a measure of success. The real issue is the transformation of public capital into infrastructure, skills, and productive capacity. A European investment can improve a railway line, modernize an administration, or finance digital infrastructure; it becomes truly transformative when these investments sustainably increase the productivity of regions and businesses.

17. GROWTH TOO WEAK FOR ITALY’S WEIGHT

Italy remains the third largest economy in the euro area and one of the continent’s major industrial powers. Its economy possesses considerable advantages: a diversified manufacturing base, competitive exporters, an exceptional tourism heritage, strong specialization in several high value added sectors, a network of small and medium sized enterprises, and a strategic geographical position at the center of the Mediterranean. Current weak growth therefore does not mean that the country has lost its economic capabilities. Rather, it means that it has not yet been able to convert these assets into potential growth quickly enough.

The European Commission forecasts real GDP growth of only 0.5% in 2026 and 0.6% in 2027. It estimates that consumption is slowing under the impact of lost purchasing power and that net exports are weighing on growth. The IMF reaches a similar conclusion, with growth forecast at 0.5% in both 2026 and 2027. In this context, Italy is not facing a recession crisis comparable to those it has experienced in the past, but something quieter: insufficient growth to rapidly alter its structural constraints.

This explains why Meloni’s economic record must be formulated with precision. To say that her government has failed would be excessive if one considers the reduction in the deficit, improvement in the labor market, and continuity of investment. To say that it has transformed the Italian economy would be equally excessive when considering potential growth, debt, productivity, and purchasing power. The most accurate term is probably stabilization under constraint. The Italian economy appears stronger on certain indicators than it did when Meloni took office, but the major variables determining its long term trajectory remain largely unresolved.

This distinction also helps explain why Meloni’s political popularity does not depend solely on GDP figures. Growth of 0.5% can be presented as positive growth in a difficult international environment, but it does not necessarily produce a visible change in living standards. Conversely, a fall in unemployment to 5.8% can represent a significant statistical improvement while leaving part of the younger population facing unemployment close to 19%. Governments therefore face a dual obligation: to improve macroeconomic indicators and to ensure that these improvements become perceptible in everyday life.

18. DEBT AS A SILENT CONSTRAINT

Public debt is ultimately the variable that prevents fiscal stabilization from being regarded as a definitive victory. With debt representing approximately 137% of GDP at the end of 2025 and a European projection of 139.2% in 2027, Italy remains highly sensitive to the relationship between interest rates, nominal growth, and investor confidence. An economy can sustain a high level of debt for a long period when interest rates are low and nominal growth remains sufficiently dynamic. But when financial conditions tighten or growth slows, debt servicing absorbs a larger share of public resources.

The Meloni government therefore has an interest in preserving financial confidence even as it seeks to respond to the social expectations of its electoral base. This constraint partly explains the permanent trade offs between tax cuts, social spending, public investment, and fiscal discipline. Every new measure must be financed, and in a highly indebted economy, deficit financing carries a higher cost than it would in a country with much lower debt.

The IMF specifically recommends a faster reduction in debt and estimates that an additional fiscal effort of approximately 1% of GDP in 2026 and 2027, beyond the measures already planned, would strengthen the debt reduction trajectory. But such a recommendation also demonstrates the political difficulty of the problem. Reducing debt rapidly requires either higher revenues, tighter control of spending, stronger growth, or a combination of the three. Each of these options carries a political cost. Higher taxation can displease households and businesses; spending reductions can affect public services; stronger growth requires reforms whose results take time.

Debt thus becomes a silent constraint on Meloni’s power. It does not prevent the government from governing, but it constantly determines what it can promise and what it can actually finance. It also helps explain why political stability has particular value in the eyes of markets. A stable government is more likely to maintain a coherent fiscal trajectory than an executive permanently threatened by a coalition crisis. But stability does not mechanically reduce debt. It merely gives the government more time to try to manage it.

19. THE REAL RECORD: A MORE STABLE ECONOMY, BUT NOT YET TRANSFORMED

At the end of this first economic assessment, Giorgia Meloni’s record therefore appears more complex than the opposing narratives of complete success and complete failure. Her government has benefited from an improving labor market, a reduction in the deficit, and a consolidation of financial credibility. The number of employed people has reached a historically high level, unemployment has fallen to 5.8%, and the public deficit was brought down to 3.1% of GDP in 2025. These results are sufficiently significant that they cannot be dismissed as mere communication effects.

But the same data reveal the limits of this success. Growth remains close to 0.5%, public debt remains around 137% of GDP and is expected to increase further as a share of GDP in the short term, productivity remains weak, and labor force participation remains insufficient among women and young people. Nominal wages are rising, but purchasing power remains exposed to inflation, and several million employees are still covered by collective agreements awaiting renewal. The Italian economy is performing better on certain parameters, but it has not yet crossed the threshold that would justify speaking of structural transformation.

The economic question therefore directly reconnects with the one posed from the beginning of this dossier. Four years of government stability have given Giorgia Meloni more time than most of her predecessors to act. They have also allowed her to build a more predictable relationship with European institutions and markets, maintain a relatively disciplined fiscal trajectory, and support certain investments. But stability does not by itself create productivity, automatically reduce debt, mechanically increase real wages, or instantly alter a country’s demographic structure.

Meloni’s economic record can therefore be summarized by a formula that must remain at the center of our dossier: Italy has become more stable without yet becoming more productive. This difference is far from secondary. It will probably determine how Italians judge her government as 2027 approaches. For once the legitimate satisfaction of having achieved exceptional political continuity has passed, another question becomes unavoidable: has this stability actually increased the country’s capacity to create wealth, improve incomes, and prepare for its future? Demography, the labor market, and territorial divides will now provide a much more demanding answer.

20. THE LABOR MARKET CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM DEMOGRAPHY

There is a profound contradiction at the heart of the Italian economy that unemployment figures alone cannot capture. Italy now has more people in employment than at the beginning of the Meloni government, and the unemployment rate has reached a level that would have been difficult to imagine during some of the most fragile phases of contemporary Italian economic history. Yet this improvement is taking place in a country whose potential working age population is gradually shrinking. Italy’s problem is therefore no longer simply to create jobs, but to have enough people to fill them in the future, enough qualified workers to meet the needs of businesses, and enough productivity to sustain an economy simultaneously confronted with aging, pension financing, pressure on public services, and rising age related expenditure. Demography is therefore not a peripheral chapter in Giorgia Meloni’s economic policy; it is one of its determining variables.

The most recent demographic data provide a particularly clear measure of the phenomenon. In 2025, Italy recorded approximately 355,000 births and 652,000 deaths. The total fertility rate fell to 1.14 children per woman, far below the replacement level. On January 1, 2026, Italy’s resident population had declined by approximately 189,000 people over one year, while the number of foreign residents reached approximately 5.56 million. Immigration therefore offsets part of the demographic decline, but it does not eliminate it. Net international migration remains positive and has become one of the main mechanisms limiting population contraction, while the natural balance remains deeply negative. Italy is not facing a future demographic crisis that might occur several decades from now; it is already experiencing this transformation.

This development profoundly changes the meaning of the success displayed by the labor market. When employment increases in an aging population, part of this growth may result from longer working lives and higher employment rates among older generations. This is precisely what recent Italian data show. Employment growth since 2021 has been particularly significant among people aged 50 to 64. This development may be positive from the perspective of public finances and labor market functioning, but it does not constitute a complete response to the demographic problem. It also means that the Italian economy increasingly depends on an aging working population while the generations entering the labor market are smaller. Aging can therefore temporarily improve certain employment indicators while gradually reducing long term growth potential.

This is why the situation of young Italians matters far beyond the unemployment rate among people under 25. An economy that fails to offer its younger generations professional prospects corresponding to their level of education risks simultaneously losing human capital, future consumption, entrepreneurial capacity, and the ability to form new families. The emigration of young graduates therefore becomes an economic as well as a social issue. In 2025, approximately 109,000 Italians registered their departure abroad, with an average age of around 34; more than one third of those leaving the country belonged to the 25 to 34 age group. Italy also recorded approximately 56,000 returns, but these were insufficient to offset departures. The country is therefore not merely losing inhabitants; it risks losing part of its working age population and of the generation that will build its economic future.

The phenomenon is even more pronounced in the Mezzogiorno. Between 2019 and 2025, southern Italy lost approximately 150,000 young graduates aged 25 to 34, primarily to Central and Northern Italy, but also abroad. This internal migration is often presented as a consequence of economic differences between regions, but in turn it acts as a mechanism that reinforces them. When a region loses a significant share of its young graduates, it also loses skills, potential entrepreneurs, consumers, taxpayers, and families capable of renewing its population. The problem is therefore not only that the South produces fewer qualified jobs; it is that it risks losing precisely the population it needs to transform its economy.

The Meloni government has attempted to respond to this situation through a combination of family, tax, and social policies, particularly through the single allowance for dependent children, measures aimed at supporting new births, and programs supporting families and childcare. These policies perform an important function, but their effectiveness must be assessed cautiously. Financial transfers can reduce the immediate cost of raising a child, but they are not necessarily sufficient to change fertility decisions when households simultaneously face housing costs, employment insecurity, childcare difficulties, economic uncertainty, and career constraints affecting women. A genuinely transformative family policy therefore requires a much broader environment in which having a child does not mean sacrificing a disproportionate share of income or professional prospects.

Childcare infrastructure illustrates this difficulty perfectly. In 2023–2024, Italy had approximately 14,570 early childhood service facilities, representing nearly 378,500 authorized places, or approximately 31.6 places for every 100 children aged zero to two. But territorial disparities remained considerable. Coverage was significantly lower in the South and the islands than in Central and Northern Italy, while a substantial proportion of facilities reported waiting lists. Family policy therefore cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the amount of allowances paid to parents. It must also be measured by the concrete ability to find a childcare place, access affordable housing, maintain employment, and reconcile professional and family life.

This dimension is particularly important for women. Increasing female participation in the labor market represents one of the most important remaining sources of potential growth available to Italy. But this increase cannot be achieved through a simple injunction to work more. It depends on the organization of the labor market, access to childcare services, availability of transportation, distribution of domestic and family responsibilities, and the ability of businesses to offer career paths compatible with different stages of life. In an aging society, every additional woman entering and remaining in employment represents not only an improvement in economic equality, but also an increase in the country’s productive and tax base. The issue is therefore simultaneously social, demographic, and macroeconomic.

Demography ultimately raises a question that economic policy can no longer postpone: with fewer young people and more elderly people, who will finance social systems and who will produce the wealth necessary to finance them? Pensions, healthcare, long term care, and social services will gradually place greater pressure on public finances. At the same time, the number of people of working age will tend to decline. Immigration therefore becomes a structural economic component, even when it remains politically controversial. An Italy that wants to maintain its level of production, finance its social protection system, and compensate for the decline in its working age population will necessarily have to consider fertility, the participation of women and young people, longer working lives, productivity, and a migration policy capable of attracting and integrating the skills its economy will need.

This is where Giorgia Meloni’s economic record encounters its deepest limitation. Her government can claim fiscal stabilization and a remarkable improvement in certain labor market indicators, but none of these advances is sufficient to resolve the demographic contradiction that will shape Italian growth for decades to come. The number of jobs may increase today; if the number of potential workers declines tomorrow, the problem will reappear in another form. The deficit may be reduced; if aging related expenditure increases faster than revenues, the pressure will return. Businesses may invest more; if they can no longer find enough qualified workers, their capacity to expand will remain limited. The true economic test is therefore not only the next budget or the next unemployment rate. It is that of a country that must simultaneously produce more with fewer workers, maintain its social model with an older population, and prevent younger generations from considering departure to be the normal condition of their future.

This reality leads directly to the next chapter of our analysis. Italy’s demographic situation is not merely a crisis of numbers; it is transforming society, relations between generations, the country’s political geography, family choices, internal and international migration, and ultimately the very definition of Italian power. After measuring what four years of the Meloni government have changed in public finances, employment, incomes, and productive capacity, we must now examine what those same years have not yet managed to reverse: an Italian society aging faster than politics is able to transform it.

A SOCIETY AGING FASTER THAN POLITICS

21. The Country Losing Births and Gaining Years of Life

Italy’s demographic crisis is often described through a figure that has become almost emblematic: the number of births is now far below the number of deaths. But behind this statistical difference lies a much deeper transformation of Italian society. In 2025, approximately 355,000 children were born in Italy, while nearly 652,000 people died. The fertility rate fell to 1.14 children per woman, while life expectancy continued to rise, reaching approximately 81.7 years for men and 85.7 years for women. Italy is therefore experiencing two developments simultaneously that might appear contradictory but which, taken together, explain the new structure of its population: Italians are living longer and having fewer children. The result is a society whose age structure is changing rapidly, with increasingly large older generations and smaller younger generations.

This development cannot be attributed to the Meloni government. It is the product of several decades of economic, cultural and social transformation. Italy’s decline in fertility began long before Meloni came to power and forms part of a broader European trend, even though Italy is now among the countries most exposed to its consequences. This observation is essential if demography is not to become a partisan instrument. The relevant question is not whether Meloni created the demographic crisis, but what a government with several years of political stability can actually do in response to such a profound trend. It is precisely here that the limits of public policy become visible. Family policy can reduce certain costs, improve access to services and make having a child less difficult, but it cannot by itself alter a demographic structure built over several generations.

The decline in births nevertheless has an immediate economic dimension. Every smaller generation means, twenty or thirty years later, fewer people entering the labor market. When this phenomenon is repeated over several decades, it eventually reduces the potential working-age population. The problem then becomes cumulative. Fewer young people mean fewer new workers; fewer workers potentially mean a narrower tax base; an older population simultaneously means greater needs in healthcare, pensions and care services. The country must therefore produce more wealth with a proportionally smaller active population. This is precisely the contradiction that Italy’s economic debate is increasingly confronting.

International immigration mitigates this dynamic without being able to reverse it. In 2025, Italy recorded approximately 440,000 arrivals from abroad, while emigration abroad stood at around 144,000 people. The net international migration balance therefore remained strongly positive, at approximately 296,000 people. On January 1, 2026, the resident foreign population stood at approximately 5.56 million. This migratory contribution helps slow demographic contraction and supports the labor market. But it also raises a major political question for a government whose electoral identity is partly built around border control and the reduction of irregular immigration. Italy can seek to reduce irregular arrivals while simultaneously needing sufficient regular immigration to support its economy. These two policies are not necessarily contradictory, but they require a much more sophisticated distinction between border control, economic immigration, integration and demographic needs.

This is one of the most important paradoxes of the Meloni government. Migration has become one of the most visible markers of its political project, yet Italy’s demography requires the country to think precisely about how it will attract the workers it will need tomorrow. A migration policy conceived exclusively as a security policy would therefore not fully address the needs of an aging economy. Conversely, an economic openness policy that ignored concerns about integration, security and the capacity of local communities to accommodate new populations would create other tensions. The real Italian question is therefore not simply how many migrants should enter the country, but which migrants the Italian economy wants to attract, in which sectors, with what qualifications, through which legal channels and with what integration policy.

22. A Youth Caught Between Education, Mobility and Departure

Italy’s demographic problem also begins with the relationship young people have with their own future. A society does not renew itself simply because it has enough births; it renews itself when its younger generations have sufficient economic, professional and social reasons to stay, work, invest and start families. Italy has long experienced a pattern of mobility among young graduates that particularly weakens regions that are already less dynamic.

In 2025, approximately 109,000 Italians registered an emigration abroad. This figure represents a decline from the exceptional peak recorded in 2024, a year marked in particular by a significant concentration of AIRE registrations following the tightening of the relevant rules. The phenomenon must therefore be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, Italian emigration remains structurally significant, while returns do not fully offset departures.

The issue is not merely the number of young people who leave. It also concerns the reasons why they leave. Some seek higher wages, others more dynamic professional environments, international careers, more open university systems or working conditions they consider more favorable. European mobility makes these choices relatively easy for Italian citizens. A young graduate can compare opportunities in Milan, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam or London without necessarily viewing departure as a definitive break with Italy. For the national economy, however, every prolonged departure represents a potential loss of skills and future tax revenues.

This dynamic is particularly strong in the Mezzogiorno. Between 2019 and 2025, approximately 150,000 young Italian graduates aged 25 to 34 left the South, mainly to move to Central and Northern Italy, but also to go abroad. According to ISTAT, the loss consisted of approximately 122,000 people who moved to Central and Northern Italy and approximately 28,000 corresponding to the negative balance with foreign countries. This movement contributes to a gradual concentration of human capital in territories that already possess the strongest labor markets.

This mechanism creates a difficult cycle to break. A region that loses its young active population has fewer consumers, fewer taxpayers and fewer people capable of creating new businesses. This contraction in turn reduces the territory’s attractiveness. Families become more reluctant to settle there, companies encounter greater difficulties in recruiting, and the younger generations that remain have fewer opportunities. Demography then becomes a factor of territorial inequality, while territorial inequality becomes an additional factor of demographic decline.

National economic policy therefore cannot address separately the issues of the South, youth and demography. They belong to the same system. An Italy capable of offering more skilled employment in the Mezzogiorno would simultaneously reduce internal migration pressures, preserve more human capital and increase the possibility of family formation in the affected territories. But this requires sustained investment in infrastructure, education, digital connectivity, research, logistics and industrial and technological sectors. Budgetary transfers can support territories; they are not enough to create the economic ecosystem that gives an entire generation a reason to build its future there.

23. The Family as Economic Policy

Giorgia Meloni has made the family one of the defining themes of her government. This orientation is consistent with her political trajectory and with the seriousness of Italy’s demographic situation. But it also creates a particular obligation: when a government declares that fertility is a national priority, it must accept that results will be assessed not only through political rhetoric or the number of programs created, but through their actual ability to change the conditions under which young adults make family decisions.

Italy now has a range of measures including the Assegno Unico e Universale, support linked to new births and programs supporting childcare for young children. According to ISTAT’s redistribution analysis covering measures that took effect in 2025, the indexation of the Assegno Unico, changes to the bonus asilo nido and the introduction of the bonus nuovi nati together represented an average benefit of approximately €120 per year for more than six million families. This figure therefore does not correspond to the entire Italian family policy, but to the estimated effect of this specific group of measures.

The cost of a child is not limited to an additional monthly expense. It includes housing, childcare, transportation, healthcare, education, the potential loss of income when one parent reduces professional activity and the opportunity cost associated with a career. In an economy where young adults face difficulties accessing housing and where real wages have been under significant pressure, an additional allowance can be useful without necessarily changing the fundamental decision to have a child. The fertility problem is therefore linked as much to confidence in the future as to the amount of assistance available.

The availability of childcare services is crucial in this respect. Italian data show highly uneven territorial coverage. In 2023–2024, Italy had nearly 378,500 authorized places in early childhood services, or approximately 31.6 places per 100 children. But coverage was significantly lower in the South and the Islands, with approximately 19.0 places per 100 children in the South and 19.5 in the Islands, compared with 40.4 in Central Italy, 39.1 in the Northeast and 36.6 in the Northwest. A family can therefore receive financial assistance and still face a very concrete obstacle: finding a childcare place near home.

This reality helps explain why family policy must be conceived as a form of social infrastructure policy. A childcare center is not merely a service for children. It is also infrastructure that enables a parent, often the mother, to remain in the labor market. A high-quality school, an accessible healthcare system, reliable transportation and affordable housing also have an indirect influence on the decision to have children. Family policy therefore becomes economic policy because it determines the amount of labor available, female participation, household income and the country’s future ability to renew its working-age population.

The paradox, therefore, is that Italy’s pronatalist policy cannot succeed if it remains separated from employment policy. A government can encourage births, but if young couples continue to face difficulties accessing stable employment, housing and childcare services, political messaging will remain confronted by everyday reality. This is why demography may be one of the areas in which Meloni’s political philosophy encounters Italy’s economic constraints most directly.

24. North and South: Two Italies in the Same Crisis

Italy’s demographic situation is not distributed evenly across the territory. It amplifies longstanding geographic divides and creates new forms of inequality between regions. The North has more diversified economies, a stronger industrial base and generally more dynamic labor markets. The South possesses considerable assets, including its Mediterranean position, tourism potential, renewable energy resources, agriculture, ports and proximity to North Africa. Yet income, employment, services and human capital gaps remain sufficiently significant to influence demographic trajectories.

The problem is not simply that the South experiences more departures. It is that the departure of young graduates gradually reduces its ability to reverse the factors that cause those departures. When a region loses part of its skilled working-age population, companies have a smaller pool of talent, local administrations also lose part of their human potential, and young families become less numerous. The consequence is cumulative. The region does not merely lose residents; it loses part of its capacity to create the conditions necessary for those who have left to return.

The gaps also appear in access to essential services. The coverage of early childhood services remains significantly lower in the South and the Islands than in the northern and central regions. This difference is not insignificant. It can influence women’s participation in the labor market, family decisions and professional mobility. A national policy that distributed the same resources per inhabitant across the entire country would therefore not necessarily produce the same results in every territory, because needs and institutional capacities are not identical.

The country’s economic geography is also changing. Regional data show positive but modest growth in 2025, at around 0.5% in the Northwest, Northeast and Centre, and 0.6% in the Mezzogiorno. This figure may appear reassuring because it indicates that the South is not necessarily condemned to lower growth than the rest of the country. But slightly higher growth in a single year is not enough to erase gaps accumulated over several decades. Italy’s problem is precisely one of differences in levels, productivity, infrastructure and human capital that cannot be corrected by an annual variation in GDP.

Higher education provides one of the most revealing indicators of this divide. In 2024, the employment rate of graduates aged 25 to 64 reached 88.3% in the North compared with 77.3% in the Mezzogiorno. Among those aged 30 to 34, the gap was even larger, with 91.1% in the North compared with 73.3% in the South. These differences do not merely tell us something about the labor market. They also explain why young graduates leave certain regions for others and why human capital tends to concentrate where professional opportunities are most abundant.

Meloni’s response to this divide therefore constitutes a major test of her ability to transform political stability into a national strategy. The Mezzogiorno is not simply a territory to be supported; it could become one of Italy’s great strategic assets in the twenty-first century. Its position at the heart of the Mediterranean gives it exceptional potential for ports, logistics, solar energy, connections with North Africa, digital infrastructure and European supply chains. But this potential will become reality only if the state succeeds in improving infrastructure, governance, training and investment capacity simultaneously.

The demographic question therefore converges with the question of power. An Italy whose population is declining and whose South continues to lose part of its young graduates can retain considerable international influence, but it will have to rely increasingly on productivity, technology, skilled immigration and the strategic concentration of its resources. An Italy that succeeds, by contrast, in stabilizing families, retaining more young people, increasing female participation and transforming the economic potential of the Mezzogiorno would possess a much greater advantage in European and Mediterranean competition.

This is why the demographic crisis may represent the most severe test of Giorgia Meloni’s record. She cannot be judged solely on measures taken since 2022, because no government can reverse within a few years a trend accumulated over several decades. But she can be judged on the direction given to the country, on the coherence of public policies and on the government’s ability to understand that fertility, employment, immigration, housing, education, public services and territorial development belong to a single equation. Italy does not simply need more children; it needs to create the economic and social conditions in which a new generation can choose to be born, remain, work and build its future.

This equation naturally leads to the government’s next major political conflict. When a population declines, territories empty out and companies need workers, migration ceases to be merely a question of borders. It becomes a question of economic model, security, identity, integration and sovereignty. It is precisely on this frontier between demography and politics that Giorgia Meloni has built one of the most visible pillars of her power. The next stage of the dossier is therefore the battle over borders: Lampedusa, the Mediterranean, Tunisia, Libya, Albania and Italy’s attempt to transform a migration crisis into a European strategy.

THE BATTLE OVER BORDERS

25. Lampedusa, or When the Mediterranean Becomes a Question of Power

For Giorgia Meloni, migration has never been merely one policy file among many. It represents one of the points where her political identity, her conception of national sovereignty and her vision of Italy’s role in the Mediterranean intersect. Since coming to power, the government has sought to shift the debate. In its discourse, the issue is no longer simply how to manage arrivals on Italian shores, but how to act upstream, along migration routes, in countries of origin and transit, while pressing the European Union to recognize that Italy’s southern frontier is also a European frontier.

Lampedusa has become the symbol of this battle. The island is geographically Italian, but its position in the Mediterranean makes it one of the first points of contact between Europe and migration routes originating in North Africa and, more broadly, sub-Saharan Africa. Every arrival immediately transforms a European question into a local reality. A few thousand people can alter the capacity of a small island to accommodate arrivals within hours, place public services under pressure and trigger a new political sequence in Rome. Geography therefore gives Lampedusa an importance far greater than its size.

The Meloni government has sought to use this reality to change the balance of power with Brussels. The logic is clear: if Italy is one of the European Union’s principal maritime entry points, then managing arrivals cannot be regarded as an exclusively Italian responsibility. It must be European. This argument is not new, but Meloni has given it particular political force by combining it with a policy aimed at reducing departures from African shores and strengthening cooperation with transit countries.

This strategy explains the importance given to Tunisia. The partnership between Rome and Tunis has gradually moved beyond migration control alone to incorporate financial, energy and economic dimensions. Italy’s objective is to help create conditions enabling the Tunisian authorities to better control departures and combat smuggling networks while supporting the country’s economic stability. But this approach contains a fundamental difficulty: no migration agreement can produce lasting results if the economic, political and social causes pushing people to leave remain unchanged.

The same logic applies to the relationship with Libya. Libya remains a major transit space, but it remains politically fragmented and institutionally fragile. For Rome, this makes cooperation both indispensable and uncertain. The ability of an Italian government to control a maritime border depends partly on the ability of foreign partners to control their own territories, coastlines and departure networks. Italian sovereignty therefore encounters a particular limitation here: it is strong on its own territory but dependent upstream on the cooperation of several states.

It is precisely this interdependence that transforms migration into a geopolitical issue. A boat leaving the Libyan or Tunisian coast is not merely the final link in an individual journey. It sits at the intersection of African, European, Mediterranean and international policies. Behind Italy’s border lie development policies, political crises, conflicts, criminal networks, climate change, income disparities and economic prospects between Africa and Europe.

Meloni’s policy has therefore attempted to build an external architecture of migration control. But this architecture produces a paradox. The more Italy succeeds in reducing irregular departures, the more it must demonstrate that this reduction is accompanied by legal pathways, economic cooperation and mechanisms capable of distinguishing people seeking protection, economic migrants and individuals involved in criminal networks. Without such differentiation, border control risks becoming essentially defensive, while Italy’s demography simultaneously requires a broader reflection on regular immigration.

Italy therefore finds itself facing an equation that no slogan can resolve. It wants to control its borders because it considers control over entry a matter of national sovereignty. But it also needs foreign workers in several sectors of its economy and is experiencing demographic contraction that is progressively reducing its working-age population. The real debate is therefore not between total openness and total closure. It concerns the construction of a system capable of controlling irregular immigration while organizing legal immigration in a way consistent with economic needs, integration capacity and Italy’s international obligations.

26. The Albania Agreement and the Externalization of the European Border

One of the most emblematic initiatives of the Meloni government has been its rapprochement with Albania over the management of certain migration procedures. The idea was politically audacious: to move part of the processing of certain migrants outside Italian territory, into facilities located in Albania, while maintaining an Italian and European legal framework. Behind this initiative lay a broader ambition: to demonstrate that part of migration policy could be organized outside EU territory without Europe nevertheless abandoning its legal responsibilities.

The project immediately raised questions about applicable law, the protection of asylum seekers, judicial oversight and operational feasibility. These questions are not secondary. Any strategy of externalizing the European border encounters a structural difficulty: physically relocating a procedure does not eliminate the legal obligations governing it. The place where a person is detained or examined is not sufficient to determine the rights to which that person is entitled.

The Albanian experience has nevertheless evolved over time. Legal obstacles significantly limited the initially envisaged operation, and the arrangement had to be redirected. In 2026, the Meloni government nevertheless continues to present the experience as part of its migration strategy and as a possible model for cooperation with partner countries. This evolution is important: the agreement with Albania can no longer be analyzed simply as a new project whose success depends exclusively on its initial implementation. It has become a laboratory whose legal and operational limitations are themselves part of the assessment.

For Meloni, however, the significance of the Albanian experience goes beyond the number of people actually processed. The real issue is institutional and political. Rome is seeking to test a new European architecture in which certain migration procedures could be carried out in partner countries, with legal safeguards defined in advance. If the model works in a legally sustainable form, it could influence the European debate on externalizing procedures. If it fails or remains severely limited, it could instead confirm that asylum management remains too closely tied to European jurisdictions and international obligations to be easily relocated.

The Albanian experience above all reveals an important evolution in Meloni’s strategy. The Prime Minister has not simply sought to toughen Italy’s migration policy; she has attempted to turn it into a European laboratory. This is an important distinction. A national policy can close a port, strengthen maritime policing or modify reception rules. A policy seeking to establish a model that can be reproduced in other European states pursues a much greater ambition.

This ambition also explains why migration has become an instrument of negotiation with Brussels. Meloni has gradually sought to present Italy not as a peripheral state asking for European solidarity, but as a frontline state capable of proposing new solutions. The change in posture is significant. Italy wants to be recognized as one of the countries shaping the European agenda on the Mediterranean rather than simply as the country bearing its consequences.

But this strategy encounters another limitation: European migration policy remains fragmented. Member states do not all share the same perception of the southern border. Mediterranean countries are directly exposed to maritime arrivals; Central and Northern European states are more concerned with secondary movements, asylum and distribution mechanisms. Their priorities are therefore not identical.

The success of an Italian strategy consequently depends on its ability to transform a national concern into a common European interest. This is probably where Meloni has made the greatest progress since taking office. Her migration policy remains controversial, but she has succeeded in making the Mediterranean a central subject of European discussions on borders, external partnerships and security.

27. Controlling Flows Without Losing Control of the Narrative

Migration policy has a second dimension, less visible but equally important: the battle over the narrative. For several years, immigration has become one of the main arenas of political polarization in Europe. Arrival figures, images of landings, shipwrecks and confrontations surrounding reception centers create a succession of events capable of rapidly changing public opinion.

Meloni has particular command of this dimension. Her discourse is based on a simple idea: a state that does not control its borders risks losing part of its ability to decide who enters its territory. This formulation allows her to connect migration, sovereignty and security without necessarily reducing the entire phenomenon of migration to an identity issue. It also gives her a political advantage over an opposition that often has to balance the defense of fundamental rights, border control and recognition of economic needs.

But political narratives have a weakness when confronted with statistical realities. A significant decline in irregular arrivals constitutes a measurable success if it is sustainable and is not accompanied by a massive shift in migration routes. But it does not mean that the migration problem has been solved. Routes can change. Criminal networks can adapt. Conditions in transit countries can evolve. Public policy therefore cannot be assessed solely through a single annual snapshot.

It must be evaluated over time, in terms of costs, judicial outcomes, the number of returns actually carried out, the time required to examine asylum applications, available legal pathways and the integration capacity of those who remain in Italy. This is where migration policy becomes far more complex than electoral slogans.

Integration is in particular one of the major issues that remains insufficiently visible in the debate. A person who enters Italy legally and works in a sector where the country lacks labor can contribute directly to economic growth and to financing the social system. But that contribution depends on the person’s ability to access declared employment, learn the language, find housing, bring family members under legal conditions and participate in society. A migration policy that controls entry while neglecting integration merely shifts the problem into the future.

This question is particularly important in an aging Italy. Labor shortages already exist in several sectors. Elderly care, agriculture, construction, logistics, hospitality and certain industrial trades depend on foreign workers. In the coming decades, population aging could intensify this dependence. The apparent contradiction between a policy of controlling irregular immigration and the need for foreign workers therefore becomes a political contradiction that the government will have to resolve through more precise categories.

The distinction between irregular and regular immigration is therefore likely to become one of the defining pillars of the Italian model. A coherent policy could be restrictive toward irregular entry while expanding legal entry opportunities for workers needed by the economy. It could also strengthen mechanisms for selection, training and integration before arrival or immediately afterward. Such an approach would be more difficult to communicate politically than a general discourse about closing borders, but it would better correspond to the country’s demographic and economic constraints.

This is precisely where part of Meloni’s legacy is at stake. Her political success rests largely on her ability to transform an emotional issue into a central theme of European sovereignty. But the next stage requires more than the ability to denounce difficulties. It requires the construction of a sustainable migration system.

28. The Battle with the Judges

This is where one of the most important institutional tensions of the Meloni government emerges. Any ambitious migration policy encounters the judiciary because decisions concerning asylum, detention, expulsions and reception conditions are subject to national, European and international rules. The government can change the law; courts may subsequently be called upon to determine whether new provisions comply with higher legal standards.

This interaction is perfectly normal in a state governed by the rule of law. It becomes politically explosive when the government believes that certain judicial decisions obstruct the implementation of its program, while judges consider that they are simply exercising their constitutional function. The Italian debate then becomes part of a broader tension than migration alone: the relationship between the political majority, Parliament, government and judiciary.

Meloni has gradually portrayed certain judicial decisions as obstacles to the effectiveness of migration policy. Her opponents have responded that the government is seeking to weaken the checks and balances capable of scrutinizing its actions. The controversy has acquired particular significance because it has unfolded in parallel with the government’s proposed judicial reform.

A simplistic reading should be avoided here. Criticizing a judicial decision is not in itself an attack on the rule of law. In a democracy, governments have the right to challenge the interpretation of a law and to seek to change it through constitutional procedures. The problem arises when criticism of judges becomes a general delegitimization of the judiciary or when mechanisms designed to guarantee judicial independence are themselves weakened.

This distinction became even more important after the 2026 constitutional referendum on judicial reform. The government-backed project, particularly its proposal to separate the careers of prosecutors and judges, was rejected by voters. The defeat limited one of Meloni’s principal institutional ambitions, without nevertheless triggering a government crisis.

Italy’s border therefore now exists at several levels. There is a physical border in the Mediterranean, a legal border defined by European and international rules, a political border between national sovereignty and European solidarity, and an institutional border between the executive and the judiciary. Meloni has won part of the debate over the first and third of these borders. The other two remain open.

29. Migration Policy Becomes Foreign Policy

The most important change of the Meloni era may lie here. Migration is no longer treated solely as domestic policy. It has become an instrument of foreign policy. Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Egypt and several African partners now occupy a place in Italy’s strategy that extends far beyond border management alone.

This development directly connects with Italy’s broader projection toward Africa. If Italy wants to reduce irregular migration, it must help stabilize transit routes. If it wants to stabilize transit routes, it must invest in the economies and institutions of partner countries. If it invests in those countries, it also seeks to develop markets, energy corridors and political relations. Migration then becomes the entry point for a broader Mediterranean strategy.

This is the context in which the Mattei Plan, which will be examined later in this dossier, must be understood. Meloni’s vision seeks to bring together energy, development, trade, infrastructure and migration within the same strategic architecture. This approach could give Italy a more important role in the relationship between Europe and Africa. But it also requires concrete results. Foreign policy cannot be built solely around summits and declarations. It must produce investment, jobs, infrastructure and lasting partnerships.

There is also a risk of reciprocal instrumentalization. Transit countries know that Europe needs their cooperation to control migration routes. They can therefore use that cooperation as leverage to obtain funding, trade concessions or political support. Italy must then negotiate with partners who themselves possess leverage.

This is not necessarily a weakness. On the contrary, it can become a source of diplomatic power if Rome succeeds in building balanced partnerships. Italy occupies an exceptional geographic position between Europe, North Africa, the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. Its influence could be strengthened if it succeeds in converting this geography into an economic, energy and diplomatic network.

Meloni’s migration policy therefore reveals something deeper about her project. The Prime Minister is not merely seeking to defend a national border. She is attempting to redefine Italy’s place in its Mediterranean and European environment. The success or failure of this strategy will not depend solely on the number of arrivals on Italian shores. It will depend on Rome’s ability to build a regional architecture sufficiently robust for migration, energy, trade, security and development to cease being treated as separate files.

At this stage of the assessment, one conclusion stands out. Giorgia Meloni has transformed migration into one of the principal instruments of her political and diplomatic power. She has succeeded in placing the issue at the center of the European debate and in shifting part of the discussion toward countries of origin and transit. But this political success now creates a more difficult obligation: to demonstrate that border control can be compatible with the requirements of the rule of law, the economic needs of an aging Italy and the international responsibilities of the European Union.

The battle over borders is therefore not over. It is simply changing its nature. After seeking to reduce arrivals and shift part of the control process outward, the government will have to answer a much more structural question: what model of border does Italy actually want to build, and what conception of European sovereignty does that model announce? The answer will lead directly to another of Meloni’s most sensitive projects: the transformation of the Italian state itself.

REFORMING THE STATE

30. Political Stability and the Difficulty of Reform

The longevity of the Meloni government creates an almost unprecedented situation in the recent history of the Italian Republic. An executive that remains in office for several years has a considerable advantage over the short-lived governments that long characterized Italian politics: it can plan, negotiate, correct its decisions and wait for the effects of its reforms. But continuity also creates a political obligation. When a government can no longer explain its difficulties through ministerial instability, coalition crises or a lack of time, the question of its record becomes more direct. After several years in power, intentions alone no longer matter; what matters are the institutions that have actually been transformed.

It is in this context that state reform has become one of the main points of tension during Giorgia Meloni’s tenure. Her government has sought to alter several important institutional balances, particularly the functioning of the judiciary, the role of the President of the Council of Ministers, territorial organization and mechanisms of political accountability. These projects have not all advanced at the same pace. Some have been slowed by constitutional procedures, others by political and judicial opposition, while some have directly encountered the verdict of voters.

The contrast with Meloni’s electoral success is striking. The coalition that brought her to power has a parliamentary majority and enjoys a level of stability that several previous Italian governments had not known. Yet this majority is not enough to easily amend the Constitution or permanently reorganize relations between the branches of government. The Italian system possesses precisely the mechanisms designed to prevent a parliamentary majority, even a strong one, from rapidly transforming the fundamental rules of the regime.

The first lesson of the Meloni government is therefore paradoxical: government stability does not necessarily mean unlimited capacity for institutional transformation. It provides time. It increases policy coherence. It can improve negotiating capacity. But it remains subject to checks and balances, constitutional procedures, Parliament, the courts and, ultimately, the citizens.

This distinction is fundamental to understanding Meloni’s record. Her government has demonstrated that it can endure, but the question now is how far that endurance has allowed it to shift the institutional boundaries of the Republic.

31. Justice, the First Major Institutional Front

Judicial reform occupies a particular place in this confrontation. The government has advocated a major reorganization of the judiciary, particularly through the separation of careers between prosecutors and judges and changes to the institutional mechanisms governing their organization. Its supporters argue that the objective is to strengthen impartiality, clarify judicial functions and make the responsibility of the different actors more transparent. Its opponents see a different risk: weakening judicial independence and altering the constitutional balance between the branches of government.

This opposition cannot be reduced to a confrontation between a reformist government and a conservative judiciary. The question is much deeper. In all constitutional democracies, the judiciary occupies a particular position because it must be able to scrutinize state action while itself remaining subject to the law. Any reform of the judiciary therefore potentially alters the balance between effectiveness, independence, accountability and separation of powers.

In Italy, this issue also has a particular political history. Relations between the political class and the judiciary have been deeply shaped by decades of fighting corruption and organized crime, followed by institutional conflicts that accompanied several governments. The judiciary is therefore not perceived merely as a technical institution. It forms part of the country’s contemporary political history.

The Meloni government placed this reform at the center of its institutional modernization project. But one of the major difficulties emerged when the proposals encountered the referendum process. The constitutional referendum held in 2026 ultimately rejected the judicial reform, including the separation of careers between prosecutors and judges. The result represented a political setback for the executive, but it did not undermine government stability.

The significance of the result goes beyond the legal content of the reform. It reminds us that Meloni’s stability does not mean that the government entirely controls the institutional agenda. The executive can propose, Parliament can vote, but constitutional procedures can open a specific space for the electorate. Reform then becomes a test of popular legitimacy.

For Meloni, the referendum defeat is all the more significant because it concerns precisely one of the areas in which she sought to leave a lasting legacy. Economic policy can produce results gradually and sometimes reversibly. Institutional reform, by contrast, changes the rules of the political game. It therefore represents a higher form of political power, but also a greater risk for those who promote it.

The government has nevertheless demonstrated that it can continue functioning after the setback. This is again a major difference from more fragile Italian governments. In a system marked by frequent executive collapses, a major institutional defeat could sometimes trigger a government crisis. Under Meloni, the majority absorbed the shock and continued its mandate. The referendum therefore weakened the reform project without necessarily weakening the government’s survival.

This distinction between government survival and programmatic success becomes one of the keys to understanding the entire Meloni experience.

32. The Project for a Stronger Executive

The other major pillar of institutional reform concerns the office of the President of the Council of Ministers. For years, the Italian debate has focused on the relative weakness of the executive and frequent changes in governing majorities. The idea of strengthening the legitimacy of the head of government responds to an old frustration: voters can choose a parliamentary majority without having certainty that the person supported during the campaign will actually remain at the head of government throughout the legislature.

Meloni sought to address this weakness through a project designed to strengthen executive stability and the political legitimacy of the President of the Council. The general objective was to bring the parliamentary vote closer to a more direct choice of the executive without formally transforming Italy into a presidential system.

But this premierato project has encountered significant political and institutional obstacles. By the end of summer 2026, the proposal allowing the direct election of the President of the Council had advanced in the Senate without completing all the necessary stages. It therefore remains one of Meloni’s major constitutional reforms whose implementation is unfinished.

A major development must now be added to this context: on September 15, 2026, the Senate approved an electoral reform by 113 votes to 71. The bill provides for a proportional system combined with a majority bonus for alliances receiving more than 42% of the vote and abolishes the mixed system currently in force. It also provides that alliances declare their candidate for President of the Council before the election. The bill must still return to the Chamber of Deputies for final approval.

This development significantly changes the context in which executive reform must be analyzed. Although the premierato and the electoral reform are not one and the same reform, they respond to a common concern: creating a more direct relationship between the electoral result, the formation of a majority and the identity of the head of government.

This ambition nevertheless touches upon a particularly delicate constitutional balance. The Italian system is not based on the direct election of the head of the executive. The President of the Republic retains a central role in the formation of governments and in protecting institutional continuity. Parliament remains at the heart of the system. Strengthening the legitimacy of the President of the Council therefore means modifying the relationship between several institutions, not simply changing an electoral procedure.

The political problem is also one of permanence. A reform that strengthens the head of government may appear attractive when the executive is stable and popular. But a constitution must also function when the majority changes, when the opposition comes to power or when the head of government becomes unpopular. This is why institutional reforms must be judged not only on their immediate effects, but also on the powers they confer upon future governments.

This question is particularly important in Meloni’s case because her own government constitutes the strongest argument against part of the diagnosis that justified reform. She has demonstrated that a President of the Council can already possess considerable stability without major constitutional reform. The Meloni government has survived through its parliamentary majority, coalition discipline, negotiating capacity and relationship with the electorate.

The question therefore arises: if the current system has allowed Meloni to govern for a sustained period, what precise institutional problem does the reform still need to solve?

Her supporters’ answer is that the current stability depends too heavily on the particular qualities of the leader and her coalition. An institution should not depend on a personality. If Italy wants to definitively move beyond the cycle of short-lived governments, it must create rules that make stability more likely regardless of who occupies the Palazzo Chigi.

Her opponents offer precisely the opposite answer. They argue that stability can be achieved through politics itself, without further constitutional concentration of power. If a coherent majority can govern for four years, then the alleged weakness of the system may no longer be as significant as it once was.

The debate therefore goes beyond Meloni. It concerns a classic question in political science: should institutions be strengthened to compensate for weak governments, or should checks and balances be preserved to prevent a stable government from becoming too powerful?

33. Parliament Between Stability and Majority Discipline

The stability of the Meloni majority has also changed the relationship between the government and Parliament. When coalitions are fragile, Parliament can become the arena in which the government’s survival is decided. Every important vote can trigger a crisis. Conversely, when a majority is solid, Parliament risks becoming more of a mechanism for translating the government’s program into legislation.

This situation is not unique to Italy. All parliamentary democracies experience this tension between majority discipline and parliamentary autonomy. But it takes on particular importance in a country where governments have historically been short-lived. Stability can strengthen executive effectiveness, but it can also reduce the political necessity of negotiating with parliamentary groups.

The true indicator of institutional quality is therefore not simply the number of laws adopted. It is also necessary to examine the quality of parliamentary debate, the role of committees, the ability of majority lawmakers to amend legislation, procedural transparency and the opposition’s capacity to exercise effective scrutiny.

This is where stability can produce two contradictory effects. It can improve governability by reducing crises and allowing the government to plan. But it can also encourage a gradual concentration of power around the executive if the parliamentary majority becomes primarily a mechanism for automatic support.

The phenomenon deserves careful observation. A disciplined majority is not necessarily a less pluralistic democracy. In a parliamentary system, voters explicitly give a coalition the responsibility to govern. Parliamentary discipline is therefore normal. The problem arises when the majority becomes incapable of scrutinizing its own government or when parliamentary procedures are systematically used to reduce the space for deliberation.

For Meloni, this question has an additional dimension. Her party, Fratelli d’Italia, has undergone a rapid transformation, moving from a political force rooted in the radical right to the leading component of a major European government. The discipline of its parliamentarians is therefore also an indicator of the institutional maturity of this new right.

The Italian experience here allows us to distinguish between two forms of power. The first is electoral power, which enables a party to win a majority. The second is institutional power, which consists of transforming that majority into lasting rules. Meloni has clearly demonstrated the first. The second remains under construction.

34. Regional Autonomy and the Question of National Unity

Territorial reform constitutes another major field of confrontation. Meloni’s coalition brings together different political traditions. Fratelli d’Italia carries a strongly national conception of the state, while Matteo Salvini’s League has a long history of advocating regional autonomy, particularly in the North. The government must therefore maintain a balance between two aspirations that are not always naturally compatible: strengthening national cohesion and increasing the powers of the regions.

The differentiated autonomy project responds to a longstanding demand to allow certain regions to exercise greater powers in several areas. Its supporters argue that territories with stronger administrative capacities should be able to manage more public policies and assume greater responsibility for their development. Its opponents fear that such a development could deepen the gap between the wealthier regions of the North and the less advantaged regions of the South.

But the project has already encountered significant constitutional limits. Part of the differentiated autonomy law was challenged by the Constitutional Court, reducing the scope of the architecture initially envisioned by the government. Differentiated autonomy can therefore no longer be regarded as an institutional project advancing without constraints: it is now framed by limits established through constitutional jurisprudence.

The debate directly connects with the demographic issues examined in Part IV. Poorly designed decentralization could deepen differences in administrative capacity and service quality. But excessive centralization could also prevent territories from responding effectively to their own needs.

Italy must therefore resolve an institutional contradiction that runs throughout its republican history. How can territorial differences be recognized without creating two de facto social systems? How can greater autonomy be allowed without compromising equality among citizens? How can administrative efficiency be rewarded without abandoning regions with fewer resources?

The answer necessarily involves defining essential levels of services guaranteed throughout the country. Without such guarantees, autonomy risks transforming an economic difference into a difference in effective rights. A wealthier region could provide better services, attract more skilled workers and further strengthen its advantage. The mechanism would become cumulative.

For Meloni, this issue also has a political dimension. Her government must maintain coalition unity. The League has an interest in advancing regional autonomy; Fratelli d’Italia must preserve its image as a national party; Forza Italia plays an intermediate role. Territorial reform therefore becomes a test of the coalition’s ability to reconcile different visions of the state. Once again, government stability has not eliminated the conflict. It has simply allowed it to be contained.

35. The Rule of Law as the Measure

At its core, the real institutional question facing the Meloni government is not whether Italy should have a strong government or a weak government. It is what a strong government means in a constitutional democracy.

A strong government is capable of making decisions, passing its budget, implementing its program and responding to crises. But it must also accept the limits imposed by the Constitution, the courts, Parliament, European institutions and fundamental rights. The strength of the executive is therefore not measured by its ability to escape checks and balances. It is measured by its ability to act effectively within those constraints.

This definition is particularly important in Italy because Meloni’s transformation has been accompanied precisely by a desire for institutional normalization. When she was in opposition, she could denounce the political system from the outside. Once in government, she had to demonstrate that her conception of national sovereignty could operate within the Italian and European constitutional architecture.

Her record is therefore mixed. On some issues, she has demonstrated remarkable adaptability. On others, institutional resistance has limited her ambitions. Judicial reform and projects to transform the executive illustrate this difficulty. The government has time and a majority, but the fundamental rules of the Republic do not change simply because a coalition has won an election.

The electoral reform approved by the Senate on September 15, 2026, adds another dimension to this equation. If it is finally approved by the Chamber of Deputies, it could substantially alter the relationship between the popular vote, electoral alliances and the formation of a parliamentary majority. It does not by itself constitute a constitutional refoundation of the regime, but it could profoundly influence the way future elections produce a governing majority.

Perhaps this is where the principal institutional lesson of Meloni’s four years lies. Stability gives power time; it does not give it unlimited power. This distinction precisely protects democracy against the idea that a durable majority can become an authority without limits.

The result is paradoxical but healthy. Meloni has demonstrated that a right rooted in traditions long regarded as marginal could govern Italy for an extended period without producing the institutional rupture predicted by some of her opponents. But she has not demonstrated that stability necessarily requires a stronger constitutional concentration of power. Citizens, courts and constitutional mechanisms have continued to impose limits.

The true assessment of state reform must therefore be measured not only by the texts adopted, but also by what Italy’s institutions have resisted becoming. The Republic has allowed Meloni to govern for a long time; it has also reminded her that endurance does not mean refoundation.

And this distinction leads directly to the European question. Italian power is no longer exercised within a closed national space. A substantial share of economic, migration, energy, trade and regulatory decisions are now made within a European architecture in which Rome must negotiate with Brussels, Berlin, Paris and the other capitals. To understand how far Giorgia Meloni has truly transformed Italy, we must therefore temporarily leave the Palazzo Chigi and look toward the other center of power that increasingly conditions her action: the European Union.

ITALY AND EUROPE: FROM CONTESTATION TO INFLUENCE

36. Brussels Is No Longer the Adversary It Once Denounced

There is, in Giorgia Meloni’s European trajectory, a paradox that deserves more attention than the spectacular declarations of her early years. The leader who had built part of her political rise on criticism of a Europe considered too bureaucratic, too distant from national governments and too weak in defending its borders became, once installed at Palazzo Chigi, one of the most important leaders in the European Union. She has not abandoned the idea of a more sovereign Europe, more protective of its borders and more attentive to national interests. But she has gradually understood that the best way to change Europe was not necessarily to withdraw from it or confront it head on. It could also consist of occupying its center of gravity.

This evolution is one of the most significant aspects of Meloni’s normalization. Her government did not choose the systematic confrontation with Brussels that some observers had anticipated. On the contrary, it sought to maintain a functional relationship with the European institutions, particularly on public finances, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, migration policy, energy and major geopolitical issues. This strategy has not transformed Meloni into a European federalist. Rather, it has produced a form of pragmatic European conservatism: defending a stronger conception of national sovereignty while using common institutions whenever they serve Italian interests.

The change is considerable compared with the period when Fratelli d’Italia was in opposition. At that time, criticism of Brussels was an important element of the sovereigntist right’s discourse. Once in government, economic reality imposed a different logic. Italy remains one of the main economies of the euro area, but also one of the most heavily indebted states in the Union. It therefore cannot afford permanent confrontation with financial markets, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. European credibility has become a direct component of Italy’s financial credibility.

This constraint partly explains Meloni’s caution. Her government has accepted the European fiscal framework while seeking greater flexibility to finance certain priorities. It has maintained dialogue with the Commission and sought to present Italy as a constructive partner rather than a rebellious state. The paradox is that this strategy has given Meloni greater European influence than permanent confrontation would probably have produced.

Meloni’s European policy therefore rests on a distinction between challenging certain directions of the Union and challenging the Union itself. This distinction has become central to the transformation of the European right. It allows a nationalist or conservative government to defend sovereignty without necessarily adopting a strategy of rupture.

37. The European Bet on the NRRP

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan is probably the best example of this evolution. Italy is the main beneficiary of the European post pandemic recovery program and has an allocation of around €194 billion when grants and loans are combined. This sum represents an exceptional opportunity to modernize infrastructure, public administrations, digital networks, energy, transport, education and part of the productive fabric.

But it is also a formidable political test. Receiving the funds is not the same as using them effectively. European resources are tied to objectives, timetables and reforms. Italy must therefore demonstrate that it possesses the administrative capacity necessary to transform an exceptional financial mass into productive investment.

For Meloni, the NRRP has a dual dimension. It first represents an economic opportunity. In an economy whose structural growth remains weak, public investment can support activity and improve infrastructure. But it also represents a question of political credibility. If Italy fails to use these resources properly, the failure will not be merely accounting based. It will reinforce the idea that the country possesses considerable resources but suffers from a chronic weakness in its administrative machinery.

The government has therefore sought to accelerate project implementation and maintain close dialogue with Brussels. This cooperation is revealing of Rome’s new posture. Italy no longer necessarily regards the Union as an institution imposing constraints from outside. It also regards it as a source of capital, standards, infrastructure and collective power that the government must learn to exploit.

The difficulty, however, remains execution. European funds do not automatically create productivity. A new railway infrastructure can reduce transport costs, but only if it is actually built and integrated into a coherent network. A digitized administration can reduce delays, but only if procedures are genuinely simplified. An energy policy can improve security of supply, but only if investment actually increases productive capacity.

The NRRP therefore reveals a more general truth about Italy. The country does not necessarily lack financial resources or individual expertise. It suffers more from the difficulty of coordinating institutions, accelerating procedures and transforming investments into lasting productivity gains. This is why implementation of the NRRP is also a test of state reform.

The success or failure of the program will therefore weigh directly on the historical judgment of the Meloni government. A political generation could leave behind tens of billions of euros spent, or a structural modernization of the country. The two are not equivalent.

38. A Pragmatic Relationship with Ursula von der Leyen

The relationship between Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen also illustrates this evolution. The two leaders belong to different political families, but they have gradually built a working relationship. This proximity has not eliminated disagreements. It has shown that the European Union often functions less through ideological affinities than through shifting coalitions around specific issues.

Meloni has understood that her European weight depends on her ability to build alliances. Italy does not, on its own, possess the capacity to define the European agenda. It must therefore work with other states, with the institutions and with the different political families of the European Parliament.

This strategy is particularly visible on migration. Rome has succeeded in shifting part of the European debate toward strengthening external borders, partnerships with transit countries and cooperation with African states. Even when all Italian proposals have not been adopted, the ability to shift the center of the debate already constitutes a form of influence.

Meloni has also benefited from a European context favorable to some of her positions. The war in Ukraine, energy tensions, growing security concerns and migratory pressures have strengthened the place of sovereignty and security issues on the European agenda. Several issues once regarded primarily as belonging to the national right have become common concerns for governments across the Union.

This evolution has facilitated Meloni’s normalization. When a prime minister from the radical right advocates strengthening European defense, support for Ukraine, border protection or energy diversification, she sometimes finds herself close to positions held by traditionally centrist governments. The substance of policies then matters more than the leader’s ideological history.

But this normalization comes with a counterpart. The more central Meloni becomes in European politics, the more she must arbitrate between her national electorate and the compromises required at the European level. A leader can promise to defend Italian sovereignty during a campaign. Once seated around the European table, she must accept compromises with twenty six other governments and with the common institutions.

This difference between national discourse and European practice is one of the most interesting elements of the Meloni record. It does not necessarily mean contradiction or betrayal. On the contrary, it may reveal the transformation of a political force when it moves from opposition into government. Power imposes trade offs that opposition can ignore.

39. Meloni After Draghi

To understand Meloni’s European position, one must also return to Mario Draghi. Before her, Draghi embodied a different form of Italian leadership: technocratic, deeply integrated into European and international networks, and particularly credible with markets and financial institutions. Meloni succeeded him with a radically different political identity.

Yet on certain fundamental issues, continuity exists. Both governments considered that Italy should remain at the heart of the European Union and the Atlantic alliance. Both attached particular importance to financial credibility. Both understood that Italian influence depended largely on the country being regarded as a reliable partner.

The difference lies more in political language and priorities. Draghi represented European technocracy and crisis management. Meloni represents a national right seeking to use European institutions without necessarily adopting their federalist philosophy. Where Draghi embodied confidence in European institutions, Meloni seeks more actively to shape them.

This evolution is important because it indicates that political alternation in Italy has not necessarily produced a strategic rupture. The change of government did not lead Rome to abandon the main European and Atlantic orientations. Rather, it changed the way Italy defends its interests.

The transition from Draghi to Meloni can therefore be read as a particular political experiment: a sovereigntist right enters government without abandoning the country’s principal international anchors. The question is no longer whether it can govern against Europe, but whether it can govern within Europe while seeking to alter its political balance.

40. Italy Wants to Become the Third Pillar

This ambition is clearly visible in Meloni’s desire to strengthen Italy’s position between France and Germany. For decades, the political engine of the Union was largely associated with the Franco German partnership. But successive crises have revealed the limits of a Europe directed exclusively by two capitals.

Meloni seeks to make Rome a third center of gravity. This ambition rests on several elements: Italy’s economic weight, its geographical position, its industrial capacity, its Mediterranean role, its energy importance, its relationship with North Africa and its place within the G7.

The strategy is not necessarily one of replacing the Franco German partnership. Rather, it is about building a more balanced political triangle in which Italy can exert greater influence over major European decisions.

This ambition nevertheless faces several obstacles. The Italian economy remains less dynamic than some other major European economies. Public debt limits fiscal room for maneuver. Domestic political tensions can reduce Rome’s ability to speak with one voice. Finally, European influence depends less on a country’s nominal weight than on its ability to build coalitions.

Meloni has nevertheless understood a fundamental principle of European power: a major capital is influential only when it knows how to make its interests compatible with those of others. This is particularly visible in Mediterranean affairs. Italy can convince several partners that the stability of North Africa, the reduction of irregular migration, energy security and African growth are also European interests.

Geography then becomes an instrument of diplomacy.

Rome can present the Mediterranean not as a peripheral border of Europe, but as one of its future strategic centers. This conception directly connects with the Mattei Plan and the government’s African policy.

41. A More Geopolitical Europe

The rise in international tensions has also transformed the environment in which Meloni exercises power. The European Union is no longer merely an internal market and a regulatory space. It is gradually seeking to become a geopolitical actor capable of responding to the war in Ukraine, tensions with Russia, energy dependencies, trade and technological rivalries, and the changing global balance of power.

This transformation corresponds to several of Meloni’s priorities. A Europe that protects its borders, develops its defense, diversifies its energy supplies and strengthens its partnerships with Africa is a Europe that partly aligns with her conception of a more autonomous European power.

But European autonomy does not necessarily mean a break with the United States. On this point as well, Meloni has distinguished herself through a more Atlanticist position than some of her historical positions might have suggested. The Italian government has maintained a close relationship with Washington and confirmed the importance of NATO.

This combination lies at the heart of Meloni’s European doctrine: more European power without abandoning the transatlantic alliance. It may appear contradictory if strategic autonomy is understood as an alternative to the United States. It becomes more coherent if understood as Europe’s desire to possess its own capabilities while remaining allied with Washington.

Italy can play an important role in this architecture because it has a dual orientation. It belongs fully to the Western and Atlantic world, but it also looks directly toward the Mediterranean and Africa. It can therefore serve as a bridge between two strategic spaces.

This position could become one of Meloni’s principal geopolitical legacies if it endures over time. But it will depend on Italy’s ability to translate diplomatic influence into economic, industrial, military and energy capabilities.

42. Europe as a Mirror of the Meloni Record

After four years in government, Giorgia Meloni’s European policy therefore presents one essential characteristic: it has been less revolutionary than her opponents feared and more transformative than her critics sometimes acknowledge.

She has not withdrawn Italy from the European framework. She has not broken with the euro. She has not transformed Rome into a capital hostile to Brussels. On the contrary, she has integrated European constraints into her governing strategy. But this integration does not mean passive acceptance of the existing European model. Meloni seeks to shift the Union’s priorities toward security, borders, competitiveness, energy, industry and the geopolitical dimension.

It is precisely this combination that explains her current position within the European right. It offers an alternative path to classical Euroscepticism. It suggests that a national conservative government can remain fully integrated into European institutions while seeking to redirect them.

The success of this strategy, however, remains conditional on the results achieved in Italy. Lasting European influence cannot indefinitely compensate for weak growth, stagnant productivity, high debt or deteriorating public services. Foreign and European policy can increase a government’s prestige, but it cannot replace the transformation of the national economy.

This is where the assessment returns to its central thread. Meloni has achieved what many Italian governments had failed to achieve: time. She has used that time to stabilize public finances, strengthen Rome’s international position, reshape the migration debate and place Italy within a new European political geography. But domestic results remain more difficult to measure.

The next stage of our analysis must therefore broaden the framework once again. Meloni’s Italy cannot be understood solely through Brussels. It must be observed from Washington, NATO, Ukraine, the Mediterranean and now the entire set of power relations being reshaped around Europe. For if Meloni wants to make Italy a third European pillar, she must also demonstrate that Rome can become a Mediterranean power capable of speaking simultaneously to Washington, Brussels, Africa and the Arab world.

It is within this space that the next stage of her project will be played out: Italy as an Atlantic, European and Mediterranean power.

WASHINGTON, NATO, UKRAINE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN: ROME’S NEW POWER POLICY

The stability restored within Italy has gradually produced another effect, less visible in the national debate but far more important for understanding Giorgia Meloni’s trajectory: it has given Rome the ability to conduct a foreign policy with a degree of continuity that previous Italian governments had not always been able to maintain. Since taking office in October 2022, Meloni has sought to place Italy on a clearly European and Atlantic course, while developing a more assertive conception of the Mediterranean as a central space of national security. This orientation has led her government to support Ukraine, maintain Italy’s commitment within NATO, strengthen relations with Washington and attach growing importance to North Africa, the Middle East and the energy routes connecting the Mediterranean to the rest of the world. The result is not yet that of a great power capable of determining the international agenda on its own, but rather that of a middle power seeking to make better use of its geography, industry, armed forces, diplomatic networks and simultaneous membership in the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance.

This evolution is all the more significant because Giorgia Meloni came to power with a much more uncertain international reputation. Her political trajectory, her membership in a national right that had long remained outside the European consensus and the positions adopted by Fratelli d’Italia before its accession to government had fueled questions about Italy’s strategic orientation. Yet once in power, Meloni made a choice that deserves to be distinguished from campaign rhetoric: she confirmed Rome’s European and Atlantic anchoring and maintained Italian support for Ukraine. This continuity helped reassure several European partners and markets, while allowing Italy to regain a certain degree of predictability in the major security discussions concerning the continent. Observers who now emphasize the caution and pragmatism of her government recognize precisely this transformation: the Meloni in government has proved far more institutional and strategic than the Meloni of the opposition had suggested.

WASHINGTON: A STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP THAT CAN NO LONGER REST ON PERSONAL PROXIMITY

The relationship with the United States has been one of the essential instruments of this normalization. Meloni understood that Italy’s international credibility depended in part on its ability to remain a reliable partner of Washington without giving the impression that Rome was thereby abandoning its European autonomy. This equation became particularly delicate after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, as relations between the American president and European governments were marked by profound disagreements over military spending, trade relations, Ukraine, Russia, Iran and the very future of the transatlantic security system. In this context, the initial ideological proximity between Meloni and Trump had raised the possibility of a special role for Rome: that of a capital capable of understanding Washington better than some other European governments and facilitating dialogue between the two shores of the Atlantic.

This hypothesis, however, lost much of its credibility in 2026. The once close relationship between Meloni and Trump deteriorated sharply after the American president publicly accused her, in the spring, of lacking courage and of abandoning the United States in the context of the war against Iran. The problem now goes beyond the personal dimension. The crisis demonstrated the limits of a diplomacy based on political proximity between leaders when strategic interests diverge. Above all, it made Rome’s claim to play the role of privileged bridge between Washington and European capitals much more difficult. The lesson for Italy is important: in a relationship of power, influence cannot rest durably on personal access to an American president; it must be supported by common interests, independent capabilities and an institutional position strong enough to withstand changes in circumstances.

This new reality imposes on Meloni a policy more complex than simple proximity to Washington. Italy must continue to engage in dialogue with the United States because the transatlantic relationship remains fundamental to its security and to Europe’s security, but it must simultaneously strengthen its European capabilities. This necessity is particularly clear in the defense debate. In August 2026, Rome officially requested €8 billion under the European SAFE mechanism designed to support the defense capabilities of member states. Italy could have been eligible for a maximum amount of €14.9 billion under the mechanism, but the decision also revealed tensions within the coalition, particularly the reservations of Matteo Salvini’s League. This situation summarizes a broader contradiction: the Meloni government wants to strengthen Italy’s strategic capacity, but it must do so in a country where increased military spending remains politically sensitive and where fiscal constraints severely limit the state’s room for maneuver.

NATO AND THE REDEFINITION OF ITALIAN SECURITY

NATO remains, within this architecture, Italy’s principal security framework. The war in Ukraine has profoundly changed Europe’s perception of military risks and returned the Atlantic Alliance to the center of strategic debate. For Rome, this reality has a particular dimension: Italy is not located on Europe’s eastern flank, but it occupies an essential position on its southern flank. The Mediterranean, North Africa, energy routes, port infrastructure, undersea cables, trade flows and migratory movements make the Mediterranean space a direct component of Italian security. Italy’s conception of defense therefore cannot be limited to the Alliance’s eastern border. It must also take into account the crises developing south of Europe and their effects on the continent.

This southern dimension is becoming even more important as contemporary threats cease to correspond to the classic categories of warfare. Energy infrastructure can become strategic targets, digital networks can be attacked without a declaration of war, influence operations can disrupt European societies and drones can rapidly transform tactical balances. In September 2026, the United States ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, himself stressed the need for Alliance members to take hybrid actions and the protection of critical infrastructure, particularly energy infrastructure, seriously. For Italy, this evolution reinforces the importance of the Mediterranean and gives new significance to its geographical position.

The Meloni government therefore faces a profound transformation in the very notion of national security. The defense of Italian territory can no longer be conceived solely through land, naval and air forces. It now includes the protection of ports, electricity networks, energy infrastructure, digital communications, logistics chains and maritime corridors. Italy’s strategy must also incorporate security of supply, industrial resilience and the capacity to rapidly produce or acquire the equipment required. The decision to seek European SAFE financing shows that Rome is beginning to place this issue within a European framework, but it also reveals a more fundamental truth: Italian military power will increasingly depend on Europe’s ability to build a defense industrial base sufficiently autonomous not to depend entirely on decisions made in Washington.

UKRAINE: THE MOST DIFFICULT TEST OF STRATEGIC COHERENCE

Support for Ukraine is probably the issue that best makes it possible to measure the coherence of Meloni’s foreign policy. Since taking office, the Italian prime minister has maintained a position favorable to Western support for Kyiv, despite the differing sensitivities within her own electorate and the reservations expressed by some members of her coalition. This position has strengthened her credibility with several European governments and distanced her from the forces of the European radical right calling for an end to sanctions against Russia or a reduction in military support for Ukraine. The choice, however, is not without cost. It comes at a time when defense spending is increasing, energy prices remain vulnerable to international crises and part of Italian public opinion wants public resources to be devoted more heavily to domestic economic and social problems.

The difficulty becomes even greater with the evolution of American policy. In September 2026, Donald Trump announced that European countries could be called upon to reimburse the United States for part of the military aid and ammunition supplied to Ukraine. This statement illustrates a deeper transformation in the transatlantic relationship: Washington is now asking its European partners to bear a larger share of the cost of their own security. For Italy, as for the other major European economies, the problem is both strategic and budgetary. Rome must maintain its commitment to Ukraine, respond to NATO’s new requirements, modernize its own forces and at the same time preserve financial discipline, which has already become one of the defining features of Meloni’s policy.

The war in Ukraine also places Italy before a question that goes beyond the conflict itself: what kind of security Europe does it want to help build? A Europe that would remain essentially dependent on American capabilities, or a Europe capable of assuming greater responsibility for its defense while maintaining the alliance with Washington? Meloni has never truly chosen between these two models. Her policy instead seeks to preserve the transatlantic link while strengthening European capacity. This position may appear cautious, but it corresponds to the reality of a country whose security, economy and diplomacy are deeply integrated into the European and Atlantic space. The real question is therefore not whether Italy must choose between Washington and Brussels, but how far it can increase its capacity for action without weakening the alliance on which it continues to depend.

THE MEDITERRANEAN AS A SPACE OF POWER

It is, however, to the south that Meloni’s foreign policy reveals perhaps its clearest singularity. Since taking office, her government has progressively developed the idea of an enlarged Mediterranean, encompassing not only the Mediterranean basin in the geographical sense, but also North Africa, the Sahel, the Middle East and the maritime routes connecting these regions to Europe. This vision gives strategic coherence to several policies that might otherwise appear dispersed: migration control, relations with Tunisia and Libya, energy security, cooperation with Algeria, African policy, the Mattei Plan, maritime security and European diplomacy.

Italian geography becomes an instrument of power here. The peninsula lies at the meeting point of several strategic systems undergoing profound transformations simultaneously. Gas arrives through corridors connecting North Africa to Europe. Trade routes cross the Mediterranean and its access points to the world’s major maritime routes. Sahel crises have direct migratory and security consequences for southern Europe. Middle Eastern conflicts affect energy markets and maritime circulation. Tensions around the Strait of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz regularly remind us that European power depends on maritime routes sometimes located thousands of kilometers from its land borders.

The energy crisis of 2026 has further strengthened this perception. On September 11, the Italian government announced new measures designed to accelerate national oil and gas projects in order to reduce dependence on imports. Italy produces approximately 29 million barrels of crude oil per year and around 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas, volumes that cover only a small share of its needs. Gas accounts for nearly half of the country’s electricity generation, while Italy’s energy bill could approach €60 billion in 2026. This situation shows why North Africa and the Mediterranean cannot be regarded in Rome as mere diplomatic issues: they are directly linked to the country’s economic security.

THE “MEDITERRANEO ALLARGATO” AND ITALY’S NEW AMBITION

The concept of the enlarged Mediterranean thus makes it possible to connect the different elements of Meloni’s international policy. Italy wants to be present in Europe, but it refuses to conceive of its European interest without taking the south into account. It wants to strengthen NATO, but it wants the Alliance to pay greater attention to its southern flank. It supports Ukraine, but it must also manage the war’s energy and economic consequences. It wants to reduce irregular migration, but it understands that relations with African countries of origin and transit are an indispensable component of this policy. Finally, it seeks to increase its influence in Africa while making the Mattei Plan an instrument of economic cooperation and international projection.

This coherence is one of the most important developments in Italian foreign policy under Meloni. It does not mean that Rome possesses all the means necessary to realize its ambitions. Italy remains confronted with very high public debt, weak growth and budgetary constraints that limit its ability to finance infrastructure, defense, the energy transition and social policies simultaneously. But a middle power does not necessarily need the means of a superpower to increase its influence. It must know how to concentrate its resources where its position gives it a comparative advantage.

Italy possesses precisely this advantage in the Mediterranean space. It has a diversified industrial base, internationally significant energy companies, substantial naval capabilities, strategic ports, a dense diplomatic network and a privileged institutional position within the European Union and NATO. Its historical problem has been less the absence of assets than the difficulty of placing them within a sufficiently stable strategy. The longevity of the Meloni government gives it, for the first time in a long while, the possibility of transforming these scattered assets into a relatively continuous foreign policy.

FROM POLITICAL STABILITY TO STRATEGIC POWER

This is where the record of government longevity takes on a dimension that goes far beyond domestic politics. An administration that lasts allows partnerships to be built, negotiations to take place over several years, energy programs to be developed, defense investments to be made, a diplomatic line to be maintained and a country’s perception among its partners to evolve gradually. This is one of the strongest arguments in favor of the stability claimed by Meloni. But this stability has strategic value only if it produces a capacity for action greater than what instability previously allowed.

On this ground, the record remains intermediate. Meloni has unquestionably made Italian foreign policy more legible. She has maintained the European and Atlantic anchoring, supported Ukraine, strengthened relations with several African and Mediterranean countries and given the Mattei Plan a central place in Rome’s international strategy. She has also contributed to making the Mediterranean a priority political space for Italy. But the deterioration of her relationship with Trump starkly recalls the limits of this strategy. Italy cannot rely on a privileged relationship with Washington to increase its influence in Europe, any more than it can transform its geographical position alone into autonomous power.

The next step is therefore to convert stability into capacity. This means a stronger defense industry, more resilient energy infrastructure, an African diplomacy capable of producing concrete economic results, a European policy ambitious enough to influence decisions in Brussels and a transatlantic relationship based on reciprocity rather than personal proximity between leaders. The question is no longer whether Giorgia Meloni has succeeded in making Italy a politically more stable country. That point is now established. The strategic question becomes much more demanding: will this stability allow Rome to become a more influential European power, capable of defending its interests between Washington, Brussels, Kyiv, Moscow, Africa and the Mediterranean?

It is within this equation that the true international significance of the Meloni government probably lies. Italy possesses neither the military power of the United States, nor the economic weight of China, nor the combined financial capabilities of the European Union. It can nevertheless become a decisive actor in spaces where several crises converge. The Mediterranean, North Africa, energy routes, maritime security, Ukraine and European defense constitute precisely these areas of convergence. If Rome succeeds in connecting them within a sustainable strategy, the Meloni government will be able to leave behind more than a record of longevity. It may have contributed to redefining Italy’s place within the European strategic architecture.

But this ambition now confronts a new reality. Political stability no longer automatically guarantees control over the international timetable. Relations with Washington have become more unpredictable, the war in Ukraine remains open, energy security remains vulnerable, military spending is increasing and competition for influence in Africa is intensifying. Italy therefore has a strategic window, but that window is not unlimited. Meloni still possesses political time, but less strategic time than it may appear. The true legacy of her government will depend on her ability to use the years of stability not to govern for longer, but to build an Italian power sufficiently coherent to survive the government that conceived it.

THE MATTEI PLAN: AFRICA AS ITALY’S STRATEGIC HORIZON

Giorgia Meloni’s African policy is probably one of the areas in which Italian political stability is seeking most clearly to transform itself into strategic power. The Mattei Plan, presented in Rome in January 2024 during the Italy Africa Summit, is not merely a development cooperation program. It reflects a more ambitious attempt to reposition Italy at the center of relations between Europe, the Mediterranean and the African continent by combining development, energy, infrastructure, training, agriculture, health, water, private investment and security. The Italian government officially presents this architecture as “peer to peer” cooperation, intended to break with practices regarded as paternalistic in some earlier European policies. But behind this diplomatic terminology lies a deeper reality: for Rome, Africa has become a determining space for energy security, control of migration routes, industrial competitiveness and Italy’s international projection.

The change in scale is now measurable. The framework, initially launched around nine pilot countries, was expanded in January 2025 to five additional partners, bringing the first perimeter to fourteen countries. In 2026, Rome announced a further extension to four additional countries, Congo, Rwanda, Gabon and Zambia, bringing the network to eighteen countries. The Plan’s third annual evaluation, submitted to the Italian Parliament in July 2026 and covering the period through June 30, reports more than 70 projects undertaken with African partners. A mapping published in August, for its part, listed 76 major projects distributed across eighteen countries, covering areas ranging from water to agriculture, energy to infrastructure, digital technology to training, culture to health. The figure matters less than its political significance: the Mattei Plan has moved from the stage of announced doctrine to that of an operational architecture now seeking to establish a lasting Italian presence across several African spaces.

This evolution nevertheless deserves to be observed with greater precision than official statements allow. A high number of projects does not automatically mean profound economic transformation, just as a multiplication of agreements does not guarantee their long term implementation. The true indicator of success will be the ability of these programs to produce functional infrastructure, sustainable jobs, local value chains, skills transfers and investments sufficiently solid to durably modify economic relations between Italy and the countries concerned. It is precisely on this ground that the Mattei Plan must be judged. Its international credibility will depend less on the narrative power of its launch than on Rome’s ability to demonstrate, over time, that the announced cooperation produces measurable results for African societies as well as for the Italian economy.

ENERGY AT THE HEART OF ITALY’S NEW GEOGRAPHY

The energy dimension is one of the most strategic elements of the framework. Italy possesses a unique geographical position within the European energy system. Located at the heart of the Mediterranean, close to North Africa and connected to the major gas and electricity corridors crossing the Mediterranean basin, it can seek to transform this geography into an economic and diplomatic advantage. Relations with Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt thus take on an importance that goes far beyond the question of supplies alone. They fit into a broader vision in which Italy seeks to become a platform between African resources, European markets and the continent’s growing need for energy infrastructure.

This ambition comes at a time when Italy’s energy dependence remains high. In September 2026, the Meloni government further accelerated its efforts to develop domestic oil and gas production amid significant vulnerability to disruptions in international markets. Gas accounts for nearly half of Italian electricity generation, while the country’s energy bill is expected to approach €60 billion in 2026. This reality gives the Mattei Plan an additional dimension: Africa is not perceived merely as a space for cooperation or as an area of origin and transit for migration, but as one of the environments in which Italy can seek to secure its supplies and strengthen its position within the future European energy geography.

The challenge, however, is more complex than a simple return to hydrocarbon diplomacy. The Italian government also seeks to place its African action within transformations linked to renewable energy, electricity infrastructure, water, agriculture and technology. The financial mechanisms associated with the Mattei Plan demonstrate this desire to combine public cooperation with private sector mobilization. The framework notably includes a ceiling of €500 million for Italian companies active in Africa, an allocation of €200 million under the “Misura Africa,” a co investment platform of up to €750 million, as well as several mechanisms associated with the African Development Bank and green infrastructure. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Africa already accounted for 52% of the geographical destinations of resources mobilized under this framework, while energy security and infrastructure accounted for 42% of the financing considered, ahead of companies and industrial establishments at 32%, followed by water, agriculture and food security at 26%.

AFRICA AS INDUSTRIAL POLICY

This is where the Mattei Plan becomes particularly interesting for understanding Meloni’s economic policy. The African strategy is not limited to seeking new commercial outlets. It can also serve to strengthen Italy’s productive base, particularly for companies capable of operating in the energy, construction, agri food, engineering, vocational training, digital infrastructure and water management sectors. The objective then becomes to build a relationship in which Italian investments find new markets, while African partners obtain productive capacities, infrastructure and skills capable of supporting their own development.

The TERRA program, developed with the FAO, illustrates this orientation. Its objective is to facilitate access to financing for microenterprises and small and medium sized agri food enterprises in Africa and Turkey by combining financial guarantees, support for local banking institutions and technical assistance. In April 2026, a €30 million financing agreement was notably concluded with Equity Bank in Kenya to expand available credit for small and medium sized enterprises, particularly in the agricultural sector. At the same time, an agreement was reached to strengthen trade relations between Italian and Kenyan companies. This approach demonstrates an important evolution in Italian economic diplomacy: the objective is no longer merely to finance public projects, but to create mechanisms capable of moving capital, companies, skills and production chains between the two shores of the Mediterranean and beyond.

This logic also explains why training occupies a growing place within the framework. In February 2026, the “Progetto Africa” program, funded to the amount of €6.5 million by Italian cooperation, was launched to train 1,320 leaders and senior officials from four African countries. In another area, university and scientific programs are now integrated into the Mattei Plan, with initiatives designed to attract African students and researchers to Italian institutions. The stakes are considerable: on a continent where demographics are rapidly transforming the need for training, employment and skills, a policy dealing only with energy and migration would remain structurally incomplete. Training can become one of the most durable instruments of Italian influence if it is accompanied by genuine circulation of skills and by the ability of African graduates to contribute subsequently to the development of their own economies.

MIGRATION: THE BORDER BETWEEN COOPERATION AND NATIONAL INTEREST

There is, however, one dimension of the Mattei Plan that Rome cannot separate from its migration policy. From its origins, the project has been associated with the idea of addressing the root causes of irregular migration by developing the economies of countries of origin and transit. This philosophy aligns with the Rome Process, which seeks to connect migration, security, development, vocational training, agriculture, energy and local resilience. In January 2026, thirteen new projects were selected within this framework, with the objective of involving the countries concerned in a more comprehensive approach to migration routes.

This linkage may be politically effective, but it contains a fundamental difficulty. A cooperation policy designed primarily as an instrument of migration control risks reducing African societies to their ability to retain or allow their populations to leave. Yet migration dynamics are linked to far more complex factors: demographics, employment, conflicts, climate change, governance, territorial inequalities, individual aspirations, family networks and economic prospects. The effectiveness of an Italian strategy in Africa will therefore depend on its ability to move beyond the sole logic of reducing irregular arrivals. If development becomes merely a means of preventing migration, the promise of an equitable partnership loses part of its credibility. If, on the contrary, investments produce genuine economic capacities, the migration objective can become a consequence of a development policy rather than its sole justification.

This distinction is essential to understanding the project’s international significance. Italy seeks to defend its national interest, which is legitimate in foreign policy, but it simultaneously wants to present its action as a new model of cooperation with Africa. These two objectives can be compatible, provided that the interests of African partners are not treated as a secondary variable. The principle of “peer to peer” cooperation promoted by Rome will therefore face a simple but decisive question: do African countries actually possess sufficient capacity to define with Italy the priorities, conditions, financing mechanisms and expected outcomes of the projects?

ROME, BRUSSELS AND THE NEW COMPETITION FOR AFRICA

The Mattei Plan also has a European dimension. Italy is not merely seeking to strengthen its bilateral relations with African countries; it is attempting to have its approach recognized as one of the instruments of European policy toward the continent. This strategy benefits from convergence with the European Union’s Global Gateway program, a substantial share of whose resources is intended for Africa. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs now explicitly emphasizes the synergies between the two architectures and presents the Mattei Plan as an instrument capable of contributing to the implementation of Global Gateway within a “Team Europe” framework.

This alignment gives Rome a new possibility. Italy possesses neither the financial resources of the European Union, nor the military power of the United States, nor China’s industrial scale. But it possesses an asset that few major European powers possess with equal intensity: geographical, historical, commercial and energy proximity to several African regions. By connecting its own financial instruments to European capabilities, Rome can seek to transform an intermediate national power into European influence. The Mattei Plan then becomes less a strictly Italian program than a laboratory for what a more coordinated European policy toward Africa could look like.

This ambition nevertheless places Meloni before a strategic contradiction. The more European the Mattei Plan becomes, the more its success depends on Rome’s ability to work with Brussels, European financial institutions and African governments. Yet the more the project is presented as the particular expression of Italy’s strategy, the more it risks remaining dependent on Rome’s resources and political will. The true test will therefore be whether Meloni can transform an initiative born from her own political vision into an architecture sufficiently institutionalized to survive her government and become a lasting element of Italian foreign policy.

ITALY BETWEEN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND AFRICA

The Mattei Plan ultimately reveals something deeper about Giorgia Meloni’s conception of Italian power. For a long time, Italy was regarded as an important European power but structurally constrained by its debt, weak growth, territorial divisions and governmental instability. Meloni is attempting to respond to this perception by using the country’s assets differently. Mediterranean geography, industry, energy companies, diplomatic networks, proximity to Africa and the ability to act simultaneously in Brussels and in the Mediterranean world can constitute the elements of an influence based not on domination, but on the ability to occupy strategic positions.

The Mattei Plan thus becomes one of the most coherent expressions of this doctrine. Italy seeks to present itself as a bridge, but a bridge that would not merely facilitate the movement of goods, capital or migrants. Rome wants to be one of the actors defining the rules, organizing energy corridors, structuring investments and influencing European priorities. This is a much greater ambition than that of a simple African policy.

But a power strategy is not measured by the grandeur of its intentions. It is measured by its ability to transform geographical advantages into lasting political and economic results. The Mattei Plan now has a significant number of projects, a diversified financial architecture and a network extending across eighteen countries. It remains to be demonstrated that this multiplication of instruments can produce a sufficiently profound transformation to durably alter the relationship between Italy and Africa. It is only under this condition that Meloni will be able to present her African policy as one of the structural achievements of her long period in power, rather than as a succession of diplomatic initiatives carried by a favorable political environment.

From this perspective, Africa appears as the external mirror of the transformation Meloni seeks within Italy. Domestically, she wants to demonstrate that stability can restore the state’s capacity to plan. Externally, she wants to demonstrate that this stability can give Rome a more coherent, more ambitious foreign policy, more focused on its strategic interests. The success of the Mattei Plan will therefore be determined at the meeting point of these two ambitions: Italy’s ability to become stronger at home and its ability to convert that strength into influence beyond its borders. It is precisely at this point that the Meloni record ceases to be merely Italian and begins to become European, Mediterranean and African. And national sovereignty without renouncing the interdependencies that now structure the international system.

It is within this tension that Rome’s new power policy is situated. It constitutes one of the most important extensions of Giorgia Meloni’s transformation since she came to power. The leader who had built her political rise around national sovereignty now governs in a world where no European sovereignty can be exercised alone.

Meloni’s Italy is therefore not seeking to withdraw from the Western system. It is seeking to have greater weight within it. The success of this strategy will depend less on the personal proximity of an Italian leader to an American president than on Rome’s ability to transform its geographical position, economy, alliances and diplomatic network into genuine strategic capacity.

This is precisely what will lead to the next stage of this analysis: Africa, the Mattei Plan and Italy’s attempt to transform the Mediterranean into a platform for economic and geopolitical projection.

THE ITALIAN RIGHT AFTER MELONI: NORMALIZATION, COMPETITION AND A NEW FRACTURE

Giorgia Meloni’s longevity cannot be understood without returning to the transformation of the Italian right, of which she is both a product and one of its principal architects. Her rise to power in 2022 did not simply bring a new political formation to the head of government. It shifted the center of gravity of a political system in which the Italian right had long been divided among several traditions: the national conservatism of Fratelli d’Italia, the regional sovereigntism and anti immigration stance of the Lega, the European liberalism of Forza Italia and, more recently, an identity based right seeking to move beyond the traditional frameworks of the coalition. For nearly four years, Meloni has succeeded in maintaining these sensitivities within a single governmental architecture while giving her own party a dominant position. But this success already contains its own contradiction. The more Fratelli d’Italia settles into the center of power, the more a segment of the electorate to its right seeks a different political space, one that is less institutional, more radical and more directly hostile to certain forms of European integration.

Meloni’s trajectory rests precisely on this process of transformation. Fratelli d’Italia was born in 2012 from the legacy of the Italian post fascist right, but the party progressively worked toward institutional and international normalization. Once in government, Meloni confirmed her commitment to NATO, support for Ukraine and Italy’s membership in the European Union, while retaining a discourse strongly marked by national sovereignty, family, security, cultural identity and migration control. This combination enabled her to present her government as a conservative right now capable of governing without breaking with the principal structures of the Western order. This is one of the elements explaining why her experience is being watched so closely in other European countries: Meloni has attempted to demonstrate that a formation emerging from the radical right could reach power, retain a strong ideological identity and, at the same time, operate within European and Atlantic institutions.

This normalization, however, has never meant the disappearance of ideological tensions. Rather, it has shifted the boundary of the debate. As Meloni moves closer to the institutional center, the question becomes how far she can go without losing the segment of her electorate that voted precisely to break with the old system. Government stability has so far made it possible to contain this contradiction, but it has not eliminated it. It is now appearing with renewed intensity through the rise of Roberto Vannacci.

MELONI AND THE RECOMPOSITION OF THE CENTER RIGHT

The Italian government rests on a coalition whose solidity derives as much from the complementarity of its parties as from the electoral dominance of Fratelli d’Italia. Matteo Salvini’s Lega retains an important political foothold, particularly in the north of the country, while Forza Italia, led by Antonio Tajani, brings a more liberal and European political culture traditionally attached to the transatlantic relationship. This diversity constitutes a strength when it allows Meloni to represent several currents of the Italian right, but it becomes a weakness when disagreements concern the government’s major strategic directions.

Salvini therefore represents a permanent pressure on the governing right from its own right flank. His formation remains committed to a sovereigntist line and to recurring criticism of certain European policies, while Tajani advocates a more clearly pro European orientation closer to the political tradition of Silvio Berlusconi. Meloni stands between these two poles. She must preserve the cohesion of her coalition without allowing her partners to define the government’s positioning on their own. This position partly explains her emphasis on stability: as long as the coalition remains functional, Fratelli d’Italia retains the ability to set the general agenda and present internal disagreements as normal differences within a durable majority.

The problem emerges when new forces begin simultaneously competing with several components of this coalition. This is precisely what Futuro Nazionale is now doing. The formation created by Roberto Vannacci after his break with the Lega has not simply established itself as a new protest party. It is seeking to occupy a space to Meloni’s right while directly challenging the European and cultural direction taken by part of the Italian center right.

VANNACCI: THE RETURN OF CONFLICT ON THE RIGHT

Roberto Vannacci represents a political phenomenon different from that of Meloni. A former general in the Italian Army, he established himself in the national debate through a strongly identity based discourse and political communication that rejects the caution of institutional language. His rise does not rest solely on an established party organization or on a territorial apparatus built over several decades. It rests largely on his ability to capture part of the electorate that considers Meloni to have become too cautious since entering government.

This evolution is now measurable. According to the Supermedia AGI/YouTrend published on September 10, 2026, Futuro Nazionale reaches 7.6% of voting intentions, tied with Forza Italia and ahead of the Lega at 5.6%. Fratelli d’Italia remains well ahead at 26.9%, but the Vannacci phenomenon can no longer be regarded as marginal. A YouTrend survey published a few days earlier even placed Futuro Nazionale at 7.9%, ahead of Forza Italia at 7.1% and the Lega at 4.4%. The methodologies and dates of these surveys differ, but their convergence on one point is remarkable: Futuro Nazionale has established itself in the national political landscape.

This progression changes the nature of competition within the right. Before Vannacci, Meloni primarily had to manage competition with Salvini for leadership of the conservative camp. Now, part of the battle is unfolding around another question: who embodies the most authentically sovereigntist and identity based right? Meloni responds with governing capacity, stability and international recognition. Vannacci responds with the radicalism of his discourse, opposition to certain European orientations and the promise of returning to a harder conception of national identity. The two political offerings can therefore compete without being entirely incompatible on every issue.

This is precisely what makes the phenomenon politically significant. Vannacci does not need to overtake Meloni in order to alter her political environment. He merely needs to obtain enough electoral weight to become indispensable to a future majority or to impose certain themes within the right. At 7.6% or 8%, a new formation can already alter coalition calculations, candidate negotiations and the formulation of political programs. Italian politics is therefore entering a phase in which the question will no longer be simply whether Meloni can retain power, but at what ideological price she might have to retain it.

A COMPETITION OVER EUROPE

The confrontation between Meloni and Vannacci also reveals a fundamental divergence over Europe’s future. Meloni has gradually adopted a strategy aimed at influencing the European Union from within. She criticizes certain orientations from Brussels, advocates greater sovereignty for member states and emphasizes borders, competitiveness and defense, but she does not advocate breaking with the Union. Her objective appears instead to be to alter the European political balance by using Italy’s weight as one of the Union’s major economies and as a Mediterranean power.

Vannacci advocates a more radical conception. At the economic forum in Cernobbio in September 2026, he attacked European political integration and argued for a Union conceived more as a platform for cooperation among sovereign nations. He also defended a vision strongly centered on European cultural identity and criticized what he considers excessive bureaucratization in Brussels. His discourse therefore places Futuro Nazionale on a different terrain from Meloni’s: the issue is no longer simply to reform the Union, but to question the political direction of its integration.

The difference may appear theoretical, but it has concrete consequences. Italy depends deeply on the single market, the European currency, Community financial mechanisms and common policies. A strategy of direct confrontation with Brussels would therefore entail considerable costs. Meloni knows this, and this is precisely why her government has sought to combine sovereigntist rhetoric with institutional pragmatism. Vannacci, by contrast, can afford greater radicalism because he does not yet bear the daily responsibility of managing the state. He therefore benefits from a classic advantage enjoyed by opposition forces: the possibility of turning frustrations into a political program without having to immediately arbitrate between their budgetary, diplomatic and economic consequences.

This difference could become one of the principal issues of the 2027 campaign. Meloni will have to defend her record in government, while Vannacci will be able to ask whether the transformation announced by the Italian right has not gradually been replaced by a form of conservative management. The debate will therefore not concern only immigration or identity. It will concern the very definition of sovereignty in an Italy that simultaneously belongs to the European Union, the euro area and NATO.

THE CHALLENGE OF NORMALIZATION

Vannacci’s rise poses a deeper question for Meloni: has the normalization of Fratelli d’Italia become a strength or a weakness? From an institutional standpoint, the answer is clearly positive. Meloni has succeeded in governing for nearly four years, maintaining a complex coalition, reassuring the markets and keeping Italy within a relatively stable European and Atlantic policy framework. But from the standpoint of electoral competition, this normalization creates space to her right.

European political history shows that this phenomenon is not exceptional. When a party emerging from a radical tradition enters institutions, it generally has to choose between two contradictory demands: maintaining an identity strong enough to preserve its electoral base and acquiring enough respectability to broaden its appeal. Meloni has prioritized the second without completely abandoning the first. Vannacci is now attempting to recover those who believe that the compromises of government have weakened the disruptive character of the national right.

Meloni’s difficulty will be to respond to this competition without reproducing Vannacci’s radicalism. If she significantly hardens her discourse to prevent her electorate from moving toward Futuro Nazionale, she risks undermining the international credibility she has patiently built. If she maintains an institutional and moderate line, she may leave Vannacci enough space to become the principal pole of opposition on the right. This tension will be particularly visible on immigration, European integration, family policy, justice and cultural issues.

It would nevertheless be excessive to regard Futuro Nazionale as a force already capable of replacing Meloni. Available surveys show rapid growth, but they are not an election. The party is young, its territorial organization remains untested and its ability to transform Vannacci’s popularity into a durable political structure remains uncertain. Its real test will be one of territorial implantation, local elections, candidates and the ability to build a political team that extends beyond the figure of its founder. A formation that depends almost entirely on the personality of its leader can experience a spectacular rise and nevertheless encounter its limits very quickly.

MELONI’S PARTY FACING ITS OWN HORIZON

For Fratelli d’Italia, the problem is therefore less Vannacci’s immediate competition than the question of its own evolution. The party is now Italy’s leading political movement and remains far ahead of its competitors in the polls. A YouTrend survey at the beginning of September placed it at 26.5%, compared with 22.2% for the Democratic Party, while a more recent average put it at 26.9%. This dominance means that Meloni retains a considerable electoral base, but it also means that even limited erosion can alter the balance of power within the coalition.

The situation is all the more interesting because the Italian electorate remains highly fragmented. A significant share of citizens is still undecided or abstaining. In the YouTrend poll published on September 4, this category represented 33.6% of respondents. This means that the balance of power observed today is not a definitive snapshot of 2027. Rather, it indicates the fault lines around which the campaign could be organized. The ability of parties to mobilize abstainers, persuade floating voters and build alliances will probably be as important as their current standing in the polls.

The Italian right is therefore entering a paradoxical period. It has never been so firmly established in government, yet it has never been so clearly confronted with the possibility of internal reconfiguration. Meloni dominates her camp, but this dominance itself encourages the creation of forces seeking to challenge her definition of what the right is. Salvini retains a historic organization but sees his electoral space compressed. Tajani maintains a decisive presence through Forza Italia, but his party is now directly challenged by Vannacci. Futuro Nazionale, still young, is already becoming sufficiently powerful for its possible relationship with the right wing coalition to be regarded as a strategic question.

THE POST MELONI ERA BEGINS BEFORE THE END OF MELONI

The real question is therefore no longer simply whether Giorgia Meloni will still be Prime Minister after the next election. It is what political system she will leave behind her. Her government may survive, be renewed or ultimately be replaced, but the Italian right that she will have helped transform is unlikely to return to its 2022 configuration. Fratelli d’Italia has become the center of gravity of the conservative camp, Italy has become accustomed to a durable right wing government, and a new generation of voters and political leaders now regards the national right as a governing force rather than a permanent opposition.

This transformation may be Meloni’s principal political legacy. She has demonstrated that a formation long associated with a marginalized political tradition could reach power, endure and exercise the responsibilities of the state without provoking the international rupture that some had predicted. But the same success is now producing new competition. By becoming institutional, Meloni has left space to her right for those who want to go further. By consolidating Fratelli d’Italia, she has helped make possible a new battle for the ideological leadership of Italian conservatism.

The paradox is striking. The more Meloni succeeds in stabilizing the right, the more she must now confront forces that believe this stabilization has neutralized part of its promise of rupture. The Vannacci phenomenon is not merely a potential electoral threat; it is also a historical test of Meloni’s transformation. If Futuro Nazionale continues to grow, the question will become unavoidable: is the Italian right becoming a durable institutional conservative force, or does its normalization represent only a stage before a new radicalization?

As 2027 approaches, this question could become as important as the economic record or the issue of political succession. For Italy under Meloni is no longer simply the laboratory of a right arriving in power. It is becoming the laboratory of a right that must now decide what it wants to be after discovering that it can govern. This is precisely when the real battle begins: no longer conquering the state, but defining the nature of Italian conservative power for the decade ahead.

2027: THE BATTLE FOR SUCCESSION AND MELONI’S FINAL TEST

The 2027 election will not merely be the moment when Italians decide whether or not to re elect Giorgia Meloni. More fundamentally, it will constitute the first genuine political judgment on the entirety of her governing experience. Since October 2022, Meloni has benefited from an advantage that few Italian leaders of the post war era have been able to enjoy: time. She has governed continuously, without a major parliamentary crisis, without a change of Prime Minister, without a coalition rupture and without the collapse of her majority. She has also succeeded in keeping Fratelli d’Italia at the forefront of the national political forces. But time, which for so long represented her main political capital, is now beginning to change in nature. It is no longer sufficient to demonstrate her ability to endure. It requires an assessment of what that endurance has actually produced.

The figures available at the beginning of September 2026 provide a much more complex picture than that of a firmly established governing majority. The YouTrend AGI Supermedia of September 10 places Fratelli d’Italia at 26.9%, the Democratic Party at 21%, the Movimento 5 Stelle at 12.1%, Futuro Nazionale, Roberto Vannacci’s formation, at 7.6%, tied with Forza Italia, while the Lega stands at 5.6%. In the bloc configuration used by this average, the center right reaches 41.1%, compared with 43.2% for the broad center left camp, with Futuro Nazionale counted separately at 7.6%. Another Noto poll published a few days earlier gave Fratelli d’Italia 27.5%, the PD 19.5%, the Movimento 5 Stelle 12.2% and Futuro Nazionale 8%. These figures obviously do not constitute an electoral forecast, still less an anticipated result, but they reveal an essential political reality: the next election could be fought in a much more fragmented space than Meloni’s personal dominance might suggest.

This fragmentation is particularly significant because the governing majority is precisely seeking to change the rules of the game before the next election. The proposal currently under examination in the Senate provides for a mainly proportional system combined with a governability bonus mechanism. The list or coalition coming first could receive 70 additional seats in the Chamber and 35 in the Senate if it reaches at least 42% of valid votes in both chambers. Below this threshold, or in the event of divergent results between the Chamber and the Senate, the allocation would revert to proportional representation. The text also provides that coalitions present their candidate for the presidency of the Council before the election. After its adoption by the Chamber in July, the bill began its second reading in the Senate on September 9, with a vote expected in mid September before its return to the Chamber.

This reform is important because it reveals one of the fundamental contradictions at the end of the Meloni cycle. The government presents the new system as an instrument of stability intended to prevent a return to fragile majorities and endless negotiations that have marked part of Italy’s political history. The opposition, by contrast, argues that a governing majority is seeking to adapt the electoral rules to its own interests even though the polls no longer guarantee it an advantage. The two interpretations are not necessarily incompatible. Stability is genuinely a historic problem for the Italian Republic, but any electoral reform adopted as a major election approaches inevitably becomes a question of power. The 42% threshold gives this reform a particularly political dimension: under current voting intentions, the center right is close to this threshold but has not yet reached it, while the expansion of the opposing camp also remains uncertain. The threshold can therefore appear simultaneously as a mechanism of stability and as a decisive electoral boundary.

The central question of 2027, however, will be less the score of Fratelli d’Italia than Meloni’s ability to maintain a coherent coalition around her. Since 2022, her advantage has been considerable: she is by far the leading force in her camp, while her partners have remained in secondary positions. This asymmetry has allowed her to impose her general direction on Europe, foreign policy, migration, public finances and security. But it produces a paradox today. The more Meloni dominates the right, the more the relative weakness of her allies becomes visible. Forza Italia retains a European moderating role, the Lega advocates a more assertive sovereigntist line, and Futuro Nazionale is now seeking to occupy the space further to the right of the entire camp. The coalition that allowed Meloni to govern for four years is therefore no longer exactly the coalition that will face voters in 2027.

Roberto Vannacci’s emergence gives this transformation additional depth. Futuro Nazionale is not yet a force comparable to Fratelli d’Italia, and its territorial implantation, organization and ability to transform personal popularity into a durable political structure remain to be demonstrated. But its rise is sufficiently rapid to alter the calculations of all the actors. Created in February 2026 after Vannacci’s break with the Lega, the movement has reached between 7.5% and 8% in several recent surveys, at times surpassing Forza Italia and the Lega. This growth means that the political space to Meloni’s right is no longer merely a potential electoral reserve: it is beginning to become an autonomous actor.

The Vannacci phenomenon above all forces Meloni to resolve a difficulty she had largely avoided until now. When she was in opposition, she could bring together conservative, sovereigntist, nationalist and protest voters while leaving relatively open the question of their compatibility with the practical exercise of power. Since entering government, she has progressively shifted Fratelli d’Italia toward a more institutional position compatible with Brussels, Washington, NATO and the major constraints of European policy. This normalization strengthened her international credibility and contributed to her longevity. But it also created space for those who believe that this normalization represents precisely a renunciation of part of the original program of the national right. Vannacci can therefore thrive on a contradiction produced partly by Meloni’s own success.

The difficulty will be even clearer on the European question. Meloni has demonstrated that a right emerging from a sovereigntist tradition could govern a major founding country of the European Union without triggering the rupture that some of her opponents had predicted. She chose negotiation rather than permanent confrontation with Brussels, supported Ukraine, defended Italy’s membership in NATO and participated in building an institutional relationship with the main European capitals. This evolution broadened her political space. But it also left behind part of the electorate that expected a much more radical transformation of the European order. Vannacci is now attempting to recover this electorate by challenging not only certain EU policies but the very logic of increasingly deeper European integration. The 2027 battle could therefore become an internal confrontation within the Italian right over the very definition of conservatism in power.

The center left, for its part, has a historic opportunity without yet possessing a sufficiently consolidated political architecture. The Democratic Party remains the second national force at around 21%, while the Movimento 5 Stelle retains a base above 12%. In some aggregations, the broad center left camp surpasses the center right. But this theoretical advantage depends on cooperation among forces whose political cultures, electorates and strategies remain different. The question is therefore not simply whether the opposition can overtake Meloni in the polls. It is whether it can transform an addition of electoral forces into a credible governing majority. Italy’s recent history shows that an opposition capable of defeating a majority in voting intentions is not necessarily capable of building a stable and durable coalition after the election.

This question is all the more important because the government’s record will be assessed on very concrete grounds. Economic growth, real wages, purchasing power, public health, education, public services, energy, immigration and the ability to reduce territorial divides will probably weigh more heavily in voters’ choices than the government’s institutional success in lasting longer than its predecessors. Surveys already show a particular difficulty among younger generations. According to an analysis published by Reuters in August, support for the governing bloc was below 30% among those under 35, while the center left approached half of voting intentions in this age group. The issues of employment, professional prospects, education and the departure of young graduates are therefore becoming strategic electoral issues for 2027.

The government’s defeat in the referendum on judicial reform also constitutes an important political precedent. It showed that parliamentary stability does not automatically mean the ability to transform all major institutional orientations into popular consensus. Meloni may control a parliamentary majority over the long term while encountering significant resistance within society. This distinction will be fundamental in 2027. Part of her record rests on her ability to have kept the state on a stable trajectory; another part will have to answer the question of whether this stability has made it possible to permanently change the country’s structures. The electoral judgment will focus precisely on this gap between government stability and national transformation.

Finally, there is a more personal, almost institutional question that could weigh on the entire campaign: what does Giorgia Meloni actually want for the next stage of her political career? The first hypothesis is that she seeks another term as President of the Council, making 2027 the beginning of a second cycle intended to deepen reforms left unfinished. The second is a gradual transformation of her role within the Italian and European right, with an influence that could extend beyond the government office itself. It would nevertheless be premature to present any trajectory toward the presidency of the Republic or another major institutional position as a given. At this stage, the real issue is much simpler and much more demanding: whether Meloni can transform her longevity into a renewed political mandate.

This is precisely where the true test of 2027 lies. A Meloni victory would not automatically mean that her first term was a historic success, just as a defeat would not mean that her governing experience was a failure. The result will have to be interpreted on the basis of the nature of the majority obtained, the program presented, the level of participation, the composition of Parliament and, above all, the ability of the next government to produce the transformations that the first cycle did not complete. If Meloni wins with a solid majority, she will have a powerful argument for claiming that stability was indeed the prerequisite for deeper transformation. If she wins without achieving the governing capacity promised by the electoral reform, her longevity record will appear more as an exceptional episode than as the beginning of a new political model. If she loses, the question will immediately become that of succession and legacy.

Italy is therefore entering a phase in which political time is changing meaning. For four years, Meloni’s main narrative has been that of a break with the chronic instability of the Italian Republic. As 2027 approaches, the narrative must now change: it is no longer duration that is at stake, but the use of that duration. The question voters will have to decide will not simply be whether they still want Giorgia Meloni. It will be whether they consider Italy sufficiently different to justify continuing the same political cycle. This is a much more difficult question, because it requires comparing a historic promise of stability with the everyday realities of a country that remains confronted with weak growth, high debt, a demographic crisis, pressure on wages, territorial imbalances and rapid geopolitical transformation.

The Meloni paradox then appears in full force. She has achieved what many Italian governments had failed to do: endure. But the longer she lasts, the less duration can be considered a sufficient justification. The record she has just established becomes precisely the basis from which voters can demand more from her. Stability, which yesterday was her main political argument, today becomes an obligation to deliver results. And it is probably this transformation in the very meaning of her record that will make 2027 the most important election of her political cycle.

THE CARIBBEAN PERSPECTIVE: WHAT THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE SAYS TO THE STATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

Seen from the Caribbean, Giorgia Meloni’s trajectory has an interest that extends far beyond Italy’s borders. Italy is obviously neither a Caribbean island state, nor a small peripheral economy, nor a power comparable to the major decision making centers of the international system. It belongs to the G7, the European Union, NATO and the euro monetary area. Its demographic, industrial, financial and diplomatic weight gives it capabilities that most Caribbean states do not possess. Yet a strategic proximity exists: Italy, like several Caribbean countries, lives at the intersection of several worlds. It is European without being located at the heart of the continent, Mediterranean without being reducible to its immediate neighborhood, Western while being directly exposed to the dynamics of the Global South, and deeply dependent on the maritime, energy, migration and trade flows that cross its environment. It is precisely this intermediate position that makes its experience particularly interesting when viewed from the Caribbean.

The first lesson concerns stability. For decades, part of the political discourse in small states and vulnerable economies has presented institutional stability as an almost sufficient condition for development. The Italian experience reminds us that it is only a prerequisite. Meloni has just demonstrated that an Italian government can last exceptionally long in a system historically marked by changes of majorities and ministerial reshuffles. But duration does not automatically produce transformation. It gives the state time, reduces political uncertainty, facilitates budgetary planning and allows administrations to work from a longer term perspective. It therefore creates capacity. But that capacity must then be converted into infrastructure, human capital, productivity, public services, energy security, innovation and more effective institutions. It is this distinction between stability and transformation that has universal significance.

For Caribbean societies, this distinction is particularly important because political and institutional instability has often been analyzed as one of the main obstacles to development. It is indeed one. But the Italian experience also shows the opposite risk: a system can become politically stable without resolving its structural problems quickly enough. Italy continues to face weak growth, high debt, unfavorable demographics, considerable territorial disparities and persistent pressure on real incomes. Stability can therefore become an instrument of transformation or turn into simple preservation of the existing balance. Everything depends on what the state does with the political time at its disposal.

The second lesson concerns geography. The Mediterranean is not simply a maritime border for Italy. It has progressively become a space of security, energy, trade, migration, investment and diplomatic projection. The Caribbean should be capable of being conceived through a comparable logic. The sea separating the region’s island states and continental territories is simultaneously their space of connection. It contains trade routes, fisheries resources, port infrastructure, undersea cables, energy corridors, tourism flows and migration routes that increasingly determine part of their real sovereignty. A maritime policy designed solely around border surveillance would therefore be insufficient. The sea must also be regarded as economic, diplomatic, scientific and technological infrastructure.

This is where Italy’s evolution deserves particular attention. Rome is seeking to link its Mediterranean space to a more ambitious African policy. The Mattei Plan fits into this logic. Its stated objective is not only to finance development projects, but to build a strategic relationship with several African countries in sectors as diverse as energy, agriculture, water, infrastructure, training and digital technology. In 2026, the Italian framework covers eighteen countries and more than seventy projects, with a financial architecture combining Italian public resources, European institutions, development banks and private capital. This policy is of course still subject to the test of its results, but it reveals an important conception of power: influence no longer rests solely on classical diplomacy or military force; it is also built through infrastructure, finance, training and the capacity to create lasting interdependencies.

For the Caribbean, this evolution opens a strategic reflection. The states of the region rarely possess the critical mass necessary to pursue international policies comparable to those of a European power on their own. But collectively, they possess considerable geographic positioning. The Caribbean lies close to the North American market, in contact with Latin America, at the center of major maritime routes and within a space directly affected by energy, climate and digital transitions. The relative weakness of several states therefore does not mean an absence of strategic value. It means rather that this value must be organized collectively.

The third lesson concerns migration. Meloni’s Italy has made reducing irregular arrivals a central element of its domestic and foreign policy. Irregular arrivals have indeed declined from the 2023 peak, while Rome has multiplied agreements with North African countries and developed cooperation mechanisms with Tunisia, Libya and other partners. The Albanian framework intended to manage certain migration procedures has nevertheless encountered legal and operational difficulties, reminding us that migration policy cannot be designed independently of the law, courts and European obligations.

From the Caribbean, this question must be viewed with particular caution. Caribbean migration is also linked to economic, political, climate and security factors that extend far beyond the capacity of any single government. The temptation to reduce migration to a matter of border control quickly leads to the neglect of its structural causes. The Italian experience instead suggests that migration policy becomes genuinely strategic when it is integrated into a broader policy of development, economic cooperation, regional security, legal mobility and diplomacy. Borders can be controlled, but they cannot be durably stabilized if the factors producing human displacement remain unchanged.

A fourth lesson concerns demography. Italy now belongs to the group of European societies in which demographic aging directly transforms economic and social policy. The decline in the working age population places pressure on the pension system, labor availability, public services and the sustainability of public finances. The family policies introduced by the Meloni government seek to respond to this trend, but their effectiveness cannot be measured in the short term. The problem is structural: a pronatalist policy does not immediately produce a new working generation and does not automatically resolve the question of the country’s attractiveness to young workers.

The Caribbean experiences different dynamics, but some consequences are comparable. The emigration of skilled young people deprives several economies of essential capabilities, while diaspora financial transfers partially compensate for this loss. This contradiction deserves to be treated as a strategic issue rather than as a simple migration statistic. An economy can receive billions of dollars in transfers and continue gradually losing part of its human capital. A genuine demographic policy should therefore seek to create conditions in which the diaspora becomes an economic, scientific and cultural extension of the territory rather than a permanent substitute for the absence of local opportunities.

The Italian experience also shows that contemporary sovereignty policy no longer consists simply of proclaiming the independence of the state. It consists of identifying critical dependencies and reducing those that can weaken national decision making capacity. Energy provides a particularly clear example today. In September 2026, Italy is accelerating certain domestic oil and gas production projects even as the government simultaneously seeks to strengthen energy security in a deeply disrupted international environment. The country still produces a limited amount of hydrocarbons relative to its needs, but the government now regards energy as a matter of national security as much as an economic issue.

For Caribbean states, this reflection is essential. Energy sovereignty does not necessarily mean possessing large hydrocarbon reserves. It can mean producing more electricity locally, developing renewable energy, securing networks, modernizing ports, diversifying suppliers, strengthening storage capacity and reducing vulnerabilities linked to imports. In island economies exposed to hurricanes and external shocks, energy is simultaneously a matter of development, climate resilience and national security. A coherent energy policy therefore becomes a sovereignty policy.

The same logic applies to the digital sphere. Italy is gradually understanding that European economic power increasingly depends on control of technologies, data, digital infrastructure and scientific skills. The Caribbean cannot wait until it reaches the industrial level of major powers before taking part in this transformation. Small states can sometimes compensate for their limited size by becoming specialized platforms in certain sectors: digital services, cybersecurity, financial technology, oceanographic research, artificial intelligence applied to climate, disaster management, smart tourism, precision agriculture and the maritime economy.

This is probably where the comparison with Italy becomes most fruitful. The true power of a state lies not only in the size of its territory or the strength of its army. It depends on its ability to organize its resources, anticipate its vulnerabilities and transform geographic advantages into economic and diplomatic capabilities. Italy possesses an industrial base, a commercial fleet, international companies, a university system and a Mediterranean position that allow it to convert geography into influence. Caribbean states must seek their own equivalents, based on their realities rather than through mechanical imitation of the European model.

Finally, there is a deeper political dimension. Meloni has demonstrated that a political force emerging from the national right could move from marginality to leading a major state in Europe without provoking the institutional rupture that some had predicted. This trajectory raises a question that goes beyond the Italian right: how does a democracy transform a force of protest into a force of government? The answer depends less on ideological labels than on the ability to transform political discourse into coherent public policies compatible with the law, institutions and economic constraints. The real test begins when the movement no longer has merely to denounce the system, but must assume responsibility for its daily management.

This question also concerns Caribbean democracies. In societies where institutional trust is sometimes fragile, citizens may be attracted to formations promising a total break with traditional elites. But electoral rupture is never a public policy in itself. It must be followed by administrative capacity, an economic strategy, a legal framework and an international vision. Without this second stage, political mobilization risks turning into disappointment, regardless of the ideology that carried it.

Meloni’s experience therefore offers a paradoxical lesson to the Caribbean. It shows that a state can regain the capacity for continuity without having yet resolved all of its structural weaknesses. It also shows that a medium sized country can use its geographic position as a multiplier of power, provided it links domestic policy, diplomacy, energy, migration, trade, defense and international cooperation. But above all, it reminds us that no stability can be judged solely by its longevity. The true measure of a political cycle lies in its ability to transform time gained into lasting capabilities.

For the Caribbean, this conclusion has particular significance. The region does not lack strategic positioning. Nor does it lack human resources, a diaspora, maritime potential, proximity to major markets and opportunities in energy, tourism, agriculture, digital technology and the blue economy. What it lacks more significantly is the ability to articulate these resources within a sufficiently coherent regional strategy so that geography ceases to be merely a natural advantage and becomes a genuine instrument of collective power.

Meloni’s Italy thus reminds us that twenty first century sovereignty is not a fortress. It is an architecture. It rests on a state’s ability to understand its dependencies, choose its partnerships, diversify its resources, protect its institutions and negotiate with larger powers without losing control of its fundamental interests. It is this conception of sovereignty, more economic, technological, energy based, maritime and institutional than territorial, that may be the most important lesson of the Italian experience for Caribbean societies.

From the Mediterranean as from the Caribbean, the same question ultimately emerges: how can a geographic position be transformed into political capability? Italy is now seeking its answer through Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, energy and defense. Caribbean states must seek theirs from their own realities, but with the same requirement: no longer to regard their geographic position as a mere fact of the world, but as strategic capital to be organized. It is under this condition that stability can become something other than a pause between two crises and transform itself into a genuine politics of power.

THE CPGNNEWS PERSPECTIVE: WHEN STABILITY BECOMES A TEST OF POWER

Giorgia Meloni’s record should first be recognized for what it is: a major political event in the history of the Italian Republic. In a country that has experienced sixty eight governments since 1946 and where the average duration of executives has historically remained short, surpassing the longevity threshold established by Silvio Berlusconi constitutes more than a statistical curiosity. It means that a political system long associated with instability can produce sufficiently strong governmental continuity to alter the habits of public life. Meloni has therefore already accomplished something important. But this achievement immediately raises a more demanding question: what is stability worth when it is no longer a promise, but an available resource?

It is from this question that the CPGNNews perspective differs from a simple partisan reading of the Meloni phenomenon. We do not regard governmental longevity as automatic proof of success, any more than we regard economic, social or institutional difficulties as automatic proof of failure. Reality is more complex. Meloni has stabilized Italy’s center of decision making, improved the country’s fiscal credibility, maintained a constructive relationship with European institutions, consolidated Rome’s Atlantic anchoring and sharply reduced irregular arrivals compared with the 2023 peak. At the same time, growth remains weak, public debt remains extremely high, real wages have come under significant pressure, public services remain under strain and several announced structural reforms have not produced the expected transformation. The record is therefore that of a government that has succeeded more in stabilizing the system than in refounding it.

This distinction appears fundamental to us. In many countries, particularly democracies confronted with repeated institutional crises, stability is often presented as the ultimate objective. Yet it should be regarded only as the beginning of a transformation policy. A stable government can prepare reforms over several years, secure investment, strengthen the administration, develop infrastructure, improve education, modernize health systems, invest in research and build a coherent industrial policy. If it does not do so, stability risks becoming a form of preservation. Political time is then consumed without truly being converted into national capability.

The Italian experience therefore leads us to reformulate the question of power. The real power of a government is not measured solely by its ability to remain in office. It is measured by its ability to use time to increase the country’s room for maneuver. An economic policy that reduces certain fiscal vulnerabilities but fails to sustainably accelerate productivity remains incomplete. A migration policy that reduces irregular arrivals but does not simultaneously build a strategy of legal mobility, integration and economic cooperation remains partial. A foreign policy that strengthens a country’s presence within European and Atlantic institutions gains influence, but must also produce measurable economic, energy, technological and diplomatic results. An African policy that multiplies projects gains visibility, but must demonstrate that these projects actually create value, skills, infrastructure and balanced partnerships.

This is where the Mattei Plan becomes particularly revealing. Italy is attempting to transform its Mediterranean proximity into an instrument for projecting power toward Africa by linking cooperation, energy, agriculture, infrastructure, training, finance and industrial interests. This orientation corresponds to a modern conception of power in which influence no longer passes only through diplomatic summits or political agreements, but also through the ability to finance, build, train and connect. The Italian model remains in its demonstration phase, but its ambition is clear: to turn geography into strategic capability. For CPGNNews, this evolution deserves close attention because it connects with an essential question for the Caribbean: how can an exceptional geographic position be transformed into economic, diplomatic, maritime, energy and technological influence?

The migration question reveals another dimension of this transformation. The Mediterranean and the Caribbean are two different spaces, but both are regions where the sea simultaneously constitutes a border and a corridor. Population movements therefore cannot be durably addressed solely through control mechanisms. They result from economic imbalances, conflicts, political crises, climate change and considerable differences in living standards. Migration policy becomes genuinely strategic when it is integrated into a policy of cooperation, development, security, legal mobility and protection of people. Italy is still seeking this balance. The Caribbean will also have to find it, based on its own realities.

The Meloni dossier also reveals a transformation of the European right. The normalization of Fratelli d’Italia has shown that a force emerging from the national right could move from a protest movement to a governing party without leaving the European Union, without leaving NATO and without provoking the rupture with Brussels that some scenarios had anticipated. But this normalization produces new competition. As Meloni becomes an institutional leader, part of the electorate seeking a deeper rupture may look for new representation. The rapid emergence of Futuro Nazionale around Roberto Vannacci is already one sign of this. The question is therefore no longer simply whether the right can govern. It becomes: which right can govern durably without losing its identity, and which right can retain its identity without losing its capacity to govern?

This tension has a European dimension. The Meloni model corresponds neither to breakaway sovereigntism nor to classical European federalism. Rather, it seeks to occupy an intermediate space in which the national state remains the political center, while the European Union becomes an instrument of collective power when it serves Italian interests. This conception could become particularly influential in a Europe simultaneously confronted with war, industrial competition, energy dependence, migration pressure, the return of rivalry among major powers and uncertainty in the transatlantic relationship. But it also contains a contradiction: the more powerful Europe needs to become, the more its member states must accept the pooling of certain capabilities. The more national governments claim autonomy, the more politically difficult that pooling becomes.

The relationship with Washington perfectly illustrates this tension. Meloni was initially regarded as one of the European leaders most likely to maintain a privileged channel between Europe and Donald Trump. Developments in 2026 demonstrated the limits of this assumption. The tensions that emerged around the war against Iran and Trump’s public criticism showed that presumed political proximity is not enough to guarantee a durable strategic relationship. For Italy as for Europe, the question therefore becomes one of reciprocity. A credible transatlantic partnership cannot rest solely on European dependence on American capabilities. It also requires Europe to develop its own military, energy, industrial and diplomatic capabilities. Italy’s request for several billion euros under the European SAFE program fits precisely into this new reality.

This evolution leads to a more demanding definition of sovereignty. Twenty first century sovereignty does not mean isolation. It means the ability to choose one’s dependencies, diversify partners and preserve decision making room when the international environment becomes unstable. A truly sovereign state is not one that rejects all partnerships. It is one that possesses enough capabilities of its own to negotiate partnerships without being entirely determined by them. This definition seems particularly relevant to Caribbean states, whose international existence often rests on a delicate balance among major powers, multilateral institutions, foreign investors, diasporas and regional partners.

The energy question confirms this reading. Italy remains heavily dependent on imports, even as energy has become a major factor of national security. Rome’s recent choices in favor of accelerating certain oil and gas projects must be understood in this context of vulnerability, but also confronted with European energy transition objectives and climate imperatives. The contradiction is not unique to Italy. It is one of the great dilemmas of our time: how can immediate energy security be guaranteed while preparing the gradual exit from energy models that have contributed to climate change? The answer cannot be purely ideological. It must be technological, economic, scientific and strategic.

For the Caribbean, this question is even more sensitive. Dependence on imported fuels, the vulnerability of electricity networks, the effects of hurricanes and exposure to fluctuations in international prices create a combination of risks that directly affects economic security. The energy transition should therefore not be presented only as a climate obligation. It can become a sovereignty strategy. Producing more renewable energy locally, modernizing grids, developing storage, improving energy efficiency and building regional cooperation capacities can simultaneously reduce costs, external vulnerabilities and climate risks.

The same reasoning applies to demography and human capital. Italy is discovering that the aging of a society eventually becomes a question of national power. The Caribbean must also pay close attention to the effects of youth emigration, particularly when local economies invest in education without subsequently being able to retain the skills they have produced. The diaspora represents an immense financial, cultural and intellectual resource, but it should not become the justification for structural dependence. The real strategy consists of transforming the diaspora into a power network: investment, skills transfer, research, entrepreneurship, higher education, economic diplomacy and scientific cooperation can enable a country to benefit from its citizens abroad without accepting emigration as the primary response to national shortcomings.

At the end of this dossier, our reading of Giorgia Meloni is therefore necessarily nuanced. She is neither the revolutionary leader that some of her supporters wanted to portray, nor the existential threat that some of her opponents had predicted. She has become something more interesting for political analysis: a concrete example of the transformation of a radical right wing force into a durable governing force within a complex European democracy. Her experience allows us to observe, almost in real time, what emerges from the confrontation between ideology and state responsibility, between national sovereignty and European interdependence, between migration control and geopolitical reality, and between institutional stability and the need for structural reforms.

This is why Meloni’s true record should not be reduced to the number of days spent at Palazzo Chigi. Her record is now established. Historical judgment is only beginning. The coming years will show whether this stability has enabled Italy to become more productive, more innovative, more energy resilient, more institutionally coherent, more influential in Europe and more capable of organizing its Mediterranean and African environment. They will also show whether Fratelli d’Italia has succeeded in building a durable new European right or whether Meloni’s normalization has simply opened space for a new generation of more radical forces.

For CPGNNews, it is precisely this distinction that must remain at the center of the analysis. Contemporary politics can no longer be understood solely through the traditional categories of left and right, majority and opposition, nationalism and European integration. It must be analyzed through the real ability of states to produce security, prosperity, social cohesion, innovation and sovereignty in a world where power relations are rapidly being reshaped. Meloni represents one of the European laboratories of this new era. Italy has not become another great power. Rather, it is seeking to become once again a middle power capable of fully using its strengths.

Perhaps this is where the deepest meaning of her record lies. After several decades during which Italy was often described as a country endowed with immense resources but unable to convert them durably into political, economic and institutional power, the Meloni government has demonstrated that another trajectory is possible. It now remains to be demonstrated that this trajectory can produce more than exceptional political stability. The real issue is no longer how long Meloni can govern. It is whether Italy can use this stability to change its trajectory permanently.

And from the Caribbean, one final question imposes itself: how much time could our own states gain if they managed to transform institutional stability into national capability? For the Italian lesson, at its core, is not merely Italian. It concerns all countries seeking to break out of the cycle of instability, dependence and permanent crisis management. Stability is not yet power. It is the possibility of power. Power begins when that possibility becomes an organized, lasting and measurable capability.

AFTER THE RECORD, ITALY MUST STILL PROVE THAT IT HAS CHANGED

Giorgia Meloni has now achieved what very few Italian leaders of the postwar period had managed to achieve: enough time to govern without the permanence of her government itself becoming a crisis. Her arrival at Palazzo Chigi had been accompanied by all the questions raised by the accession to power of a right wing force emerging from a political tradition that had long remained on the margins of Italy’s institutional system. Four years later, the question is no longer whether Meloni could govern. She has done so. She has even governed long enough to inscribe her name in the political history of the Republic.

But a longevity record creates a new obligation. As long as stability had not been secured, it could be presented as a goal. From now on, it becomes the starting point for judgment. Italy can no longer ask only that its government remain in office. It must be able to determine whether this continuity has produced greater economic capacity, social cohesion, institutional effectiveness and strategic power. It is this transition from stability as a political achievement to stability as an obligation to deliver results that will determine the true significance of the Meloni cycle.

The record must therefore be assessed on several levels. Politically, the achievement is undeniable. Internationally, Meloni has succeeded in placing Italy in a more visible and coherent position, particularly within the European Union, NATO and the Mediterranean basin. On migration, irregular arrivals have fallen sharply compared with the peak reached in 2023. On the budgetary front, the government has sought to preserve the country’s financial credibility despite the considerable weight of its debt. Strategically, Rome is now attempting to strengthen its role in Africa, energy, defense and infrastructure.

But the limitations are equally real. Growth remains insufficient to rapidly alter the country’s economic trajectory. Public debt remains extremely high. Real wages remain under pressure. Demographic ageing continues to gradually reduce the economy’s room for maneuver. The gaps between the North and the Mezzogiorno have not disappeared. Public services, particularly healthcare and education, continue to face structural difficulties. Several institutional reforms have encountered significant resistance or have not yet produced the changes that were announced. The government can therefore claim exceptional stability without yet being able to argue that this stability has fundamentally transformed all of the country’s structures.

It is this distinction that should guide the historical judgment. It would be too simple to conclude that Meloni has failed because Italy has not been completely transformed. It would be equally insufficient to conclude that she has succeeded simply because she has lasted longer than her predecessors. Between these two interpretations lies the reality of a government that has probably fulfilled its first mission, stabilizing the political center, but must still demonstrate that it can fulfill the second: durably increasing the country’s capabilities.

The next cycle will therefore be more difficult than the previous one. In 2022, Meloni could still benefit from the political capital of novelty, expectation and a break with a long succession of governments. In 2027, she will have to defend a record. Her opponents will be able to confront her with wages, healthcare, schools, growth and demographics. Her partners will have to explain their own place within a coalition dominated by Fratelli d’Italia. Vannacci and Futuro Nazionale may seek to convince conservative voters that Meloni’s normalization has moved the government away from some of the original ambitions of the national right. The center left, for its part, will have to demonstrate that it is capable of transforming an addition of forces into a genuine governing alternative.

The next election will therefore be less a simple consultation on Giorgia Meloni than a political referendum on the meaning of her four years of stability. Italians will have to decide whether this period has constituted a first step toward a new national trajectory or merely an exceptionally long parenthesis in a political history still marked by the same vulnerabilities.

This may be why Meloni’s record carries a significance that goes beyond her own person. It demonstrates that a democracy can change its political habits without necessarily overturning its political system. It shows that a force once considered peripheral can enter the center of power and learn to govern. It also reveals that once a national right becomes a governing force, it must confront the same constraints as other political forces: public finances, institutions, markets, administration, international alliances, demographics and social expectations. The exercise of power transforms parties just as much as parties seek to transform the state.

Italy in 2026 therefore finds itself at a particular moment. It is no longer exactly the unstable Italy of previous decades, but it has not yet become the transformed Italy that the exceptional duration of the Meloni government might have led observers to expect. It stands between the two. This intermediate position is politically uncomfortable, but intellectually interesting. It makes it possible to observe what stability actually produces when confronted with problems that cannot be solved by a single legislature, a single majority or a single political doctrine.

Meloni’s true successor may perhaps be Meloni herself, if she succeeds in opening a second cycle capable of going further than the first. It could also be another figure from her camp, if the Italian right chooses to transform the experience accumulated since 2022 into a new political generation. It could even be a force outside the current coalition if voters conclude that stability has not produced sufficient results. This is why the question of 2027 cannot be reduced to “Meloni or the opposition.” It concerns Italy’s ability to transform a new culture of stability into a new culture of government.

From the Caribbean, this conclusion deserves particular attention. European political trajectories are often analyzed as phenomena distant from Caribbean concerns. Yet the same fundamental questions run through both spaces: how to build institutions capable of enduring, how to use continuity to invest in human capital, how to reduce critical dependencies, how to manage migration, how to preserve sovereignty in an international system dominated by great powers, and how to transform geographical position into an economic and diplomatic advantage.

Italy does not provide a model to reproduce. It provides a laboratory to observe. Its strength lies in its institutions, its industry, its European membership, its Mediterranean position and its human capital. Its weaknesses are different from those of Caribbean states. But its experience recalls a truth that deserves to be placed at the center of any reflection on political development: stability is not the destination. It is the capacity to choose a direction and maintain it long enough to produce results.

Ultimately, this is the standard by which history will judge Giorgia Meloni. Not by the number of days she has spent in power, even though this record will remain in the annals of the Italian Republic, but by what those days have made possible. If Italy emerges from this period with a more productive economy, a society better prepared for ageing, more effective institutions, greater energy security, a more credible defense, stronger European influence and a more structured relationship with its Mediterranean and African surroundings, then Meloni’s record will have represented more than a political achievement. It will have marked the beginning of a transformation.

If, on the contrary, stability remains primarily a phenomenon of duration without a proportionate structural transformation, her record will remain remarkable, but her legacy will be more limited. History will then remember that a leader succeeded in keeping a government in office in a country where governments rarely lasted, without that longevity being sufficient to resolve the deep vulnerabilities of the state and society.

Between these two possibilities lies Italy in the coming months. An Italy that still has time, but can no longer ask time to speak on its behalf.

The record is now secured. The real judgment begins.

END OF THE DOSSIER

Giorgia Meloni’s Italy is therefore entering a phase in which duration can no longer be regarded as an answer in itself. The historic record now belongs to the archives of the Republic. What still belongs to the present, and above all to the future, is the question of what this period of continuity will actually have made possible.

Between political stability and national transformation lies a space that only results can fill. It is within this space that the coming months, the next electoral battle and, beyond Giorgia Meloni herself, the very definition of the new Italian right, Rome’s place in Europe and the ability of an old state to convert its resources, geography and influence into lasting power will be decided.

The Italian experience ultimately reminds us that a government does not become historic merely because it lasts. It becomes historic when duration produces a new capacity to confront problems that ordinary political time generally does not allow governments to solve.

After the record, therefore, begins the most demanding test: proving that stability can become a force for transformation.

CPGNNews

Global perspective. A reading from the Caribbean.

CaribPulse Global News Network