I gotta say it: Brava.

When, back in August of 2022 Giorgia Meloni and her gratingly-named "Brothers of Italy" party were leading the polls in the Italian national election I made my grave doubts clear. Those doubts began to dispel about a year ago, 13 months into Meloni's tenure as PM, if only because that's about the average period of time that a post-war Italian government has held power before beginning to teeter and, often owing to a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, collapse. But Ms Meloni's did not. Praise for this achievement might be tempered by considering the incompetence of her foes: Italy's center-left Partito Democratico (or PD) has spent the last decade repeatedly undermining itself and underachieving while contorting or re-branding to cling to power, so much so that even deep-red Florence was recently on the verge of electing a right-wing mayor. And the far-left Movimento Cinque Stelle (aka M5S) has seen its support collapse in the last several years, having ably demonstrated that heckling and criticizing are one thing, governing another thing entirely.

Ms Meloni has proved adept at governing, and, as the above-linked article in The Economist makes clear, this hasn't just been a matter of a bozo opposition. She has shown a deft touch for maneuvering the bounds of alliances, both within and outside of Italy. She has stirred and maintained popular support (amongst a portion of the electorate I don't count myself a member of) with her railing against wokeness, gay marriage, and immigration. And, yes, the criminalization of surrogate pregnancy and the questionable plans (and hundreds of millions spent) to shunt asylum-seekers to internment camps in Albania will hit a small slice of the Italian public hard. Meloni's professed views around same-sex couples are retrograde and (to me) disturbing, no question. But there has been no backsliding on gay marriage. There has been no restricting access to abortion. And no mass deportations. In the economic realm, Meloni has overseen a welcome contraction in Italy's national debt. She's maintained and extended an immensely popular flat tax scheme that benefits young freelancers, startups, and small sole proprietorships (like Poggiosole). In Brussels, as on issues that affect the well-being of most Italians, Meloni has quietly tacked to the center.

As significant as the foregoing, Meloni has held Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega party

Salvini with tongue out, stage left.

(one of Meloni's key coalition partners) in check. Salvini is a grandstanding populist: clownish, boorish, openly racist, staunchly eurosceptic, and a fan of Vladimir Putin, whom he once called "the best politician and statesman in the world". Unfortunately Salvini is also popular; his misguided view of the EU seems rooted in a Farage-like inability to grasp the importance of a federal Europe. Were he to ascend to Italy's premiership, Salvini would again bring disdain on the international stage (as he's done time and again). Steve Bannon is a fan. When Meloni beat Salvini to the premiership, he lobbied for second prize: Minister of Foreign Affairs. Instead he was made Minister of Infrastructure and Transport. A big desk, but far from Brussels and far from where his xenophobia can have significant policy effects. Well done, Giorgia.

I often joke that in the US I lean left and in Italy I sit right. I voted for Eike Schmidt, Florence's right-wing mayoral candidate, earlier this year. He lost, but the result was close enough to force a run-off. That in itself was remarkable for Florence, and a sign of how support for the center-left has fallen even in this stuck-in-the-past, working-class underperforming jewel of a town. I held my nose and voted PD in 2022 but if a national election were held tomorrow, would I vote for Meloni? The hard-right positions and nationalist rhetoric that drove her 2022 candidacy still give me plenty of pause. I'd need to see her adopt a more pro-European stance. And a thicker skin: like many "authoritarian lite" figures of the moment she's intolerant of criticism, and has filed several defamation lawsuits. She has also ruffled feathers in the judiciary (as have many of Italy's right and far-right parties and politicians). She doesn't hold a university degree. She has no significant foreign policy experience.

So, yeah, far from perfect. On the other hand Meloni has shown no consistent contempt for institutions à la Trump (her recent scuffle with high-ranking judges a possible exception). She has thus far been embroiled in no scandals of a personal or business nature. She hasn't pulled any lame self-serving maneuvers like Matteo Renzi's spontaneous founding of an ex-novo political party when decorum demanded, following the defeat of his constitutional reform plan in late 2016, that he simply retire from politics. She's rumored to be a doggedly hard worker. She has been unwavering in her support for NATO and Ukraine. She's listened to, and largely executed on, her predecessor Mario Draghi's conservative economic agenda. The two appear to share a vision of increasing Italy's (and Europe's) competitiveness. And, two years after bringing her goofily-named party to victory in the 2022 election, Meloni is still in the job with a 41% approval rating: a figure for which Emmanuel Macron would put on a Santa suit.

It's early to speculate, but post-Berlusconi, Meloni is the first Italian politician to show even a hint of his staying power. That's sayin' somethin', because the thing most lacking in Italian politics since Berlusconi

(and even beforehand), more than integrity, has been stability. Stability is good for boring things like banks and the repayment of the national debt. But, stability aside, Berlusconi was not great for the country. A self-serving morally-bankrupt narcissist who built his business empire with help from organized crime, it often seemed Mr Berlusconi had sought elected office so he could spend his personal wealth and political capital dodging prosecution for himself and others in his circle. He endured endless ridicule by the left but remained front and center in televised media (much of which he controlled) for over two decades, starting in the mid-1990's (for a well-researched hatchet job, check out Paul Ginsborg's 2003 book Silvio Berlusconi). Just my opinion, but those were two pretty much wasted decades during which a significant portion of the Italian electorate expected some kind of billionaire-infused deliverance and got none (MAGA fans take note).

Giorgia Meloni is neither corrupt, nor a narcissist (as far as I can tell), nor morally bankrupt, although her morals seem a bit rigid. No ties to the mob have surfaced thus far. Just a smart, self-made and very driven right-wing organizer turned national (now international) figure who has found it in herself to listen to a technocrat like Mario Draghi (try that one on, Marine Le Pen) while managing to befriend the likes of Donald Trump and his billionaire bro Elon.

Tough choices lie ahead for Ms Meloni if she is to continue to remain relevant on the international stage, and especially if she really intends to do well by Italy. But her personal qualities, her political nous, and her staying power, in the snake pit of Italian politics, could make her scrappy-no-bullshit-grassroots sensibility a precious asset to the EU.

So, FWIW, two years in, I kinda hate to say it but I gotta say it: Brava, Giorgia.

Postscript, March 1, 2025: My first thought as I woke this morning was how Meloni would react, publicly at least, to the debacle that was yesterday's Oval Office meeting between President Zelensky and President Trump. Since the US Election last November, Meloni has positioned herself as a favored interlocutor with the US president and with his oddball billionaire tecno-fascist-in-chief Elon Musk. The esteem seemed reciprocal, with Trump repeatedly referring to Meloni as a "wonderful woman" and "a great leader". In EU circles, Meloni's apparently privileged relationship with the Trump White House have been the subject of both speculation (link in Italian) and concern. After yesterday's bombshell however, Meloni's one-foot-in-each-camp position seems to me increasingly strained. Quoting Graham Greene's informant Thomas Fowler in The Quiet American (set in late 1950s Vietnam), "Sooner or later... one has to take sides. If one is to remain human." Indeed late last night Meloni wrote, in a late night communiqué, "Ogni divisione dell’Occidente ci rende tutti più deboli e favorisce chi vorrebbe vedere il declino della nostra civiltà" (Every division within the West renders all of us weaker and favors those who would like to see the decline of our way of life) and calling for an "immediate" EU-US summit to discuss how to face current challenges, above all Ukraine. Sounds to me like she is breaking for a rules-based approach. This could very well mean breaking with Trump.

Post-postscript, April 17, 2025: Meloni's visit to the Oval Office today will test her allegiance to her nationalist, hard-right base and her friendly relations with US president Donald Trump on the one hand and her loyalty to Italy's European neighbors and EU institutions on the other. It's telling that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has yet to be granted an audience with Trump. Meloni is the fourth EU premier to be hosted by him this year: France, the UK and Ireland have already had their turns. Despite the praise Trump has lavished on Meloni following their past meetings, there will be plenty for them to argue about: Italy has one of the largest trade deficits with the U.S. in all Europe. And it spends just 1.6 percent of GDP on defense, below NATO’s 2 percent target and far below Trump’s demand of 5 percent. It's possible though, that Meloni will manage to pull a rabbit from a hat, appealing to Trump's ego and wringing concessions, on tariffs especially, from a leader for whom all politics is personal. If she does, many will be watching closely to see if those concessions are reserved for only Italy or extend to the EU as a whole.