The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, today celebrates 1,413 days since she was sworn in before the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, at the Quirinal Palace, becoming this Friday - after overcoming the second Government of Silvio Berlusconi, between 2001 and 2005 - the head of the longest-serving Government in the history of the Italian Republic. After almost four years as an uninterrupted tenant of the Chigi Palace, with the current transalpine Executive, political stability is consolidated as a structural element of the last quarter of the Italian century; favoring greater political credibility for the country, even in the face of Meloni's controversial far-rightism, adapted externally as a pragmatic Europeanism.
The stability of the current legislature, in one way or another, has returned international prominence to Italy. The friendship between Meloni and Trump presented the transalpine as a bridge between Brussels and Washington; But the American's recent attacks on Pope Leo XIV and Meloni herself made the Italian's priorities redirect toward Europe. Stability, even so, has not promoted major political reforms in the country, beyond a media-friendly tightening of the Penal Code. The significant defeat in the constitutional referendum to reform the Italian Justice system has thus marked the end of the premier's political unbeatability. The Meloni debacle, finally, was internal after the referendum and external with Trump.
Meloni's current stability is based, mainly, on the solidity of a coalition with an absolute majority in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies - with an Electoral Law with a proportional system and, at the same time, also a majority to reward coalitions -; and some minority partners loyal to the premier, such as her vice president of Foreign Affairs, the head of Forza Italia (FI) Antonio Tajani and that of Infrastructure, the leader of the League, Matteo Salvini.
Meloni's internal resistance, likewise, continues to work. Within the far-right coalition, the premier's party, Brothers of Italy (HDI), is the first party in the polls; but Meloni has a problem within his coalition and to his right: his two minority partners, the leguist Salvini and the popular Tajani, are retreating in the face of the rise of a new far-right party, Vannacci's National Future (FN), who wants to wear down the Meloni coalition from the outside. In the economic sphere, with Meloni in the Government, the country has maintained a budget balance and the country's risk premium has decreased to the current 80 basis points; but Italy continues with economic growth below 1%, with low salaries and high inflation; something that the progressive opposition will take advantage of to defeat Meloni in the next general elections in 2027.
"Meloni's has been an Executive who, institutionally speaking, has managed to maintain himself and govern," explains Vera Capperucci, professor of Theory and History of Movements and Political Parties at the Luiss University of Rome. "Meloni's party has been the only one that remained in the opposition during the previous Executives and, during those years, formulated an opposition program," which took it to the Chigi Palace. "The stability of the Government is what makes it possible to formulate programs that are not mere specific political responses", typical of the short Italian Executives, "but a program for an entire legislature."
The area in which Meloni has stood out the most has been internationally. Given her political alliance with Trump, the Italian presented herself, at first, as an interlocutor for both sides of the Atlantic. But the Trumpian drift regarding tariffs, Greenland and Trump's frontal attack against Pope Leo XIV led Meloni to take a harsh position against the American, something that legitimized her at the European level.
"The current Government, in a certain way, has been better in foreign policy than in internal policy," says Italian political expert Capperucci. The continuity of the Italian Executive has favored "a consolidation of the Euro-Atlantic axis", "not so much on the Atlantic side but, unexpectedly, on the European side." The Italian political scientist highlights this aspect: "The Italian Government has always remained within the European perimeter." And he adds: "For international interlocutors, Meloni is a reliable and credible element as a representative of the Italian Government", beyond his ultra-conservative political nature. Professor Capperucci highlights how "Meloni has known how to separate herself from Trump and distance herself from what could crush her internationally."
