After standing up to Trump, Italy's 'fierce' PM faces another big test

When Giorgia Meloni was elected as Italy's first female prime minister in October 2022, her critics said she'd last only a few months.

It wasn't just that the top of Italy's political scene had been traditionally dominated by powerful men, but also because of the country's reputation for short-lived governments and rocky coalitions with 68 governments in the past 80 years.

Meloni, and her three-party coalition, however, have proved the critics wrong.

On Friday, the leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party became the country's longest serving prime minister since World War II.

In doing so, she surpassed the 1,412-day record set by Silvio Berlusconi's second administration.

At the same time, she's become a prominent figure on the world stage, known for building a close bond with US President Donald Trump, then defending herself and Italy from his tariffs and tirades as the relationship spectacularly broke down.

Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna, Manuela Moschella, said Meloni's longevity at the top of Italian politics comes down to a few key factors.

"One reason is internal to her coalition in that Meloni was able to tame her coalition partners, and she has been able to do that by growing support for her and her party during their period in power," Professor Moschella told the ABC.

"The second reason for this longevity I think lies outside her control, that in Italy the opposition to the Meloni government has been extremely fragmented ... and they really struggled to come up with a unifying theme or a narrative, not to mention a leader or a really stable program to challenge her.

"I also think that she has been a very fierce prime minister. She has never backed down from a battle."

Not all has gone to plan. Meloni came into power promising to crack down on immigration, boost Italy's profile in Europe, emphasise family values, cut taxes, and win over voters moving further to the right.

But not all has gone to plan.

Professor Moschella said while Meloni has enhanced Italy's role in the European Union and defence alliance NATO, her domestic policy record had been "shaky, to say the least".

"Especially in terms of economic policy, and we should not forget she is in a coalition government, but the government has not really tackled the long-standing and most prominent Italian problems, the economic stagnation, the salary stagnation, the unemployment, especially youth employment is still there," she said.

There have been other policy failures too — a revamp of the judiciary failed after Italians rejected it in a referendum, and controversial plans to build immigration detention centres in Albania have been delayed by legal challenges.

Meloni's coalition has succeeded in cutting new migrant arrivals though, to 66,316 last year from 157,651 in 2023.

'She is a fighter'

Riccardo Alcaro, the head of research at the Rome-based International Affairs Institute, agreed Meloni's coalition government's legislative record was "really thin", but that Italians viewed her international record positively.

"Everyone appreciates the fact she is a fighter, that she is a skilled politician, and she gained a much greater status internationally once she became prime minister, and that has reverberated positively back into Italy," Mr Alcaro told the ABC.

"She is considered the go-to far-right European leader that [other world leaders] can reason with, can do business with, can pragmatically engage with.

"And I also believe that international standing comes from her immediate support for Ukraine ... Meloni was the one single West European right-wing leader who was firmly in Ukraine's camp, and that won her a lot of goodwill in Washington with the Biden administration — goodwill that never abated when Trump came in."

Meloni was initially considered one of US President Donald Trump's closest allies in Europe.

When Trump was sworn in for his second term as US president in 2025, the Italian PM was the ​only European leader invited to attend, in what many hoped would be the start of a golden age in relations between Washington and Rome.

The US Commander-in-Chief also hosted her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he told members that she was a "fantastic woman" who had "really taken Europe by storm".

The relationship began to sour in March this year, in the early days of the US-Israeli war on Iran, when Italy denied the US permission to use its air base in Sicily.

The rift deepened when Pope Leo condemned the war, Trump lashed out at the pontiff in response, and Meloni called the US president out.

Then there was a social media spat after the G7 summit in France, where Trump accused Meloni of "begging" to have her photo with him, and Meloni responded by saying, "There's one thing he must remember: Italy and I do not beg."

As all of this was going on, public support for Trump inside Italy slumped, so far from lamenting the loss of the transatlantic relationship, Mr Alcaro said Meloni has been using it to her domestic advantage.

"Meloni, evidently, has determined her proximity to Trump has become an electoral liability, even an albatross around her neck that she has to shake off," Mr Alcaro said.

"So, she is conveying a message to the Italians that fighting, responding to Trump, is actually fighting for them. And so, she says, 'oh, I do not beg, nor does Italy'. The combination of personal and national pride was a politically astute move."

Future challenges

Meloni held a large rally on Friday, to celebrate the political milestone she had reached.

During her almost four years in office, neighbouring France has had five prime ministers while Britain has been through four.

Meloni's expected to frame the stability and durability of her coalition as one of its crowning achievements, and as a reason to vote for them in the next general election, to be held in 2027.

There are big challenges ahead though.

The emergence of a new far-right party, Futuro Nazionale, led by an ex-general, Roberto Vannacci, is tapping into anxieties over immigration, security and cultural change and arguing that Meloni's coalition has not been strong enough on these issues.

Vannacci's party has overtaken Meloni's coalition partner Forza Italia in some opinion polls, which makes it the country's fourth most popular political force only seven months after its launch.

"This guy [Vannacci] is eating away at the support of [Forza Italia] and that's a big problem for Giorgia Meloni," Mr Alcaro said.

"If those polls are correct, and we may never know that until the moment people actually vote, but if the election is held tomorrow, with the same coalition, Meloni loses the election.

"But adding Vannaci to the coalition, which would most likely lead to her reconfirmation as Prime Minister, carries a lot of risk."

Professor Moschella said she did not think Meloni and her coalition partners would take that risk.

"I think they know that to win an election they really need to win the hearts of the median voter, so I'm not sure that they will be willing, especially Meloni, to go all the way towards a far-right rhetoric," she said.