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In a mild jab at France and Germany, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni last month contrasted her government’s “extraordinary” stability with “the political turbulence that several large European nations are facing”. This offered Italy “a precious card to play”, boosting its influence over EU affairs, she said.
Meloni is not alone in suggesting that 2025 may be the year of Italy in Europe and on the wider international stage. As shown by her trip to Mar-a-Lago last weekend, Donald Trump’s return to the White House seems to present an opportunity for Meloni to act as a bridge between the next US administration and Europe. Javier Milei, Argentina’s president, has hailed the emergence of a “rightwing international” featuring himself, Meloni, Trump, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.
However, some claims on behalf of Meloni and Italy are overstated. True, France is in political paralysis and Germany’s Social Democrat-led coalition has collapsed. But Italy is no different from France and Germany in fearing the impact of US tariffs that Trump threatens to impose on European exports. Likewise Meloni’s support for Ukraine may not be a perfect fit with Trump’s foreign policy priorities.
Even in Italy some doubt that Meloni can fill the hole opened by the travails of Berlin and Paris. Among them is Mario Draghi, the former prime minister and European Central Bank president, who was the most respected Italian personality of recent times on the EU scene. Draghi told an audience in Milan last month: “The Franco-German leadership is weakened. But I see no other leadership capable of leading Europe into a common future.”
Three factors will limit the influence of Meloni and Italy in the EU: the condition of Italy’s economy; her brand of rightwing politics; and the obstacles that confront all Italian prime ministers who are politicians, as opposed to technocrats, in combining leadership at home and in Europe.
The most successful Italian premiers on the EU stage have been non-politicians such as Draghi and Mario Monti, a former European commissioner. Each took office at a time of domestic and European emergency, and each embraced the language and outlook of the EU establishment. Ultimately, each was undermined by his lack of a party base in Italy. For a while, however, they were sufficiently liberated from domestic political constraints to speak and act with authority in Europe.
By contrast, prime ministers who commanded the scene in Italy, such as Silvio Berlusconi or, more briefly, Matteo Renzi, were never completely trusted in Europe. As politicians in a country plagued by shortlived governments, their priority was to control their unruly coalitions and shore up their electoral base, but they did so with rhetoric and policies that caused unease in the EU. This is Meloni’s problem, too.
Her rightwing coalition is not in danger of breaking up, but a recent split over television licence fees showed that tensions persist. More to the point, her impulse to satisfy her supporters with attacks on the judiciary, and measures such as an amnesty for illegal construction, clashes with the EU’s insistence on the rule of law.
Finally, although the French and German economies are in trouble, Italy is hardly in better shape. Apart from meagre growth, high deficits and high public debt, the central issue is the Meloni government’s reluctance to make the structural reforms required to address Italy’s long-term relative decline.
Economic weakness is, in turn, a drag on Italian defence spending, which remains below the level expected to be demanded by Trump. Since she took power in 2022, Meloni has won friends in the EU and US by governing more pragmatically than many feared at the outset. But a genuine leadership role in Europe is likely to prove elusive.
tony.barber@ft.com
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