Giorgia Meloni is the prime minister of Italy, its first female holder of the office, who marks the completion of her third year on October 22nd 2025. She joined the old neo-fascist party at the age of 15, rose to become leader of the youth wing of its successor, the defunct National Alliance, and was a member of parliament by 29. The late Silvio Berlusconi gave her a place in his cabinet, making her the youngest minister in any post-war Italian government. After breaking with Mr Berlusconi, she and others from the post-fascist right launched the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, which she was elected to lead in 2014. She took FdI from the radical-right fringe to power with 26% of the vote at the 2022 general election; its poll ratings have since settled at 27-29%, a rare phenomenon for an incumbent party in Europe. The coalition as a whole still scores around 47%—more than enough for another majority. Only one Italian prime minister has served a full five-year term in the post-war period; Ms Meloni looks on track to be the second.
Before taking office she pledged to cut immigration. Since she has been in government, however, the number of non-EU work visas issued by Italy has increased. She intends to issue 165,000 low-skilled work visas next year, up from 30,000 five years ago. Italy has also signed a labour-mobility deal with India that recruiters praise as one of the world's most progressive. Nigel Farage has cited her as an inspiration, praising her stability in office and her approach of turning the dial on social issues rightwards.
Ms Meloni's Brothers of Italy holds an annual festival called Atreju, at which Elon Musk and Steve Bannon have spoken.
Francesco Lollobrigida, Italy's agriculture minister and Ms Meloni's brother-in-law, is a populist member of her coalition.
Ms Meloni leads a three-party coalition of Brothers of Italy, the centre-right Forza Italia (which has gained support and moved closer to the political centre since Berlusconi's death in 2023), and the hard-right League led by Matteo Salvini. Her plan to send asylum-seekers to have their cases heard in Albania---which qualifies as a safe third country---was struck down by judges. Her promises to move Italy towards a presidential system have gone nowhere. She has been a vocal critic of Russia's war in Ukraine. Despite her anti-immigration rhetoric, she has approved 500,000 non-EU work visas for the next three years, on top of 450,000 issued over the past three. She recently encouraged voters to abstain from a referendum that would have reduced the residency requirement for citizenship from ten to five years. On April 17th 2025 she met Donald Trump in Washington, where she said Italian companies were ready to invest €10bn in America and announced that Italy would raise its defence spending to 2% of GDP at the next NATO summit, without specifying when.
On March 23rd 2026 Ms Meloni's flagship judicial-reform bill was rejected in a referendum by 54% to 46%, on a 59% turnout. She had hoped to follow up a victory by changing the electoral law. The defeat also cast doubt on a separate proposed constitutional amendment to enhance prime-ministerial authority while curbing the president's—which would likewise require a referendum. Her right-wing government remains the third-longest-serving since 1945. Brothers of Italy still leads in the polls.
Ms Meloni signed Italy up to Donald Trump's Board of Peace as an observer. In late March 2026, informed by the Americans that some of their bombers heading for the Middle East intended to touch down at an airfield in Sicily, her government refused them permission—under the agreement governing access, American forces must ask consent for non-routine use and parliament should be consulted. Italy did not deny America the use of its airspace, as Spain has. Mark Rutte, the NATO chief, flatters Trump cravenly; Pedro Sánchez, Spain's prime minister, is harshly critical. Italy's "not in this case" put it in the middle—a characteristically Italian compromise.
Until then it had seemed Ms Meloni's middle ground lay somewhere west of the Azores. Trump's tariffs squeezing Italian industry and agriculture, his threats over Greenland and his belittling of NATO's contribution in Afghanistan surely did not help her referendum cause. She has since been edging away from him.
Ms Meloni's ability to hold together an ideologically diverse alliance—ranging from Mr Salvini's Eurosceptic, Russophile League to the centrist Forza Italia—testifies to her skills as a mediator. But it also means that were she to pursue more radical policies, she could be toppled by her centre-right allies. A defining characteristic of her government is that it doesn't change very much: caretaker conservatism, long on stability but short on reform. Lorenzo Pregliasco, director of Youtrend, a polling website, says there is a link between the low-key approach and popularity: "Every time you reform, you take away the benefits or privileges of someone."
A law restricting the publication of wiretaps and abolishing the crime of abuse of office came into force in 2024. In June 2025 a security law was introduced that clamps down on disruptive or destructive protests while granting broader powers to the police and intelligence services.
A tidal wave of money has washed over Italy's economy since Ms Meloni took office. Pandemic-era home-improvement and facade-renovation subsidies will have transferred an estimated €219bn ($254bn) to the private sector by the time they run their course—the equivalent of over 10% of annual GDP. On top of that, Italy received the largest share of the EU's €750bn Recovery and Resilience Facility: €194bn in grants and soft loans, of which €140bn has been disbursed. Despite all that cash, the EU expects the Italian economy to grow by no more than 0.7% in 2025, perhaps 0.9% in 2026. Finance minister Giancarlo Giorgetti has respected fiscal austerity scrupulously. Italy was the only big EU country apart from Germany whose economy shrank in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the previous one.
Ms Meloni's record in the eyes of Italian business has been mixed. She was roundly criticised for scuppering a proposed merger between UniCredit and Banco BPM, which fell apart in mid-2025 as a result of government opposition. But she has made an effort to cut red tape, including by shortening delays in dispute resolution and debt recovery. She has launched a commission to reform the tax code and another to overhaul the Testo Unico della Finanza (TUF), Italy's financial rulebook. Her government cut tax credits for innovation from 10% to 5%, and for intangible investment from 15% to nothing. Her party, Fratelli d'Italia, is sceptical of free markets. The next election need not be called until 2027.
Meloni shares MAGA positions on immigration and gender issues and is friendly with Trump, though her visit to Washington to plead the EU's case on tariffs was a failure. Her government is in an uncomfortable position: sympathetic to an American administration that wants to undermine the European project to which Italy belongs. Italian approval of America has fallen only moderately, in part because the right has a near-monopoly over TV news. Trump's overtures to Vladimir Putin seem less offensive in Italy, where support for Russia remains relatively high.
The election of Leo XIV, an American pope who has criticised both J.D. Vance and indirectly Trump on social media, poses a particular problem for Meloni. She now shares Rome with a head of state hostile to the MAGA movement she has courted, yet it would be more than the career of any Italian politician is worth to gainsay a pope—especially the leader of a party many of whose followers regard themselves as faithful Catholics.
The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct.