Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister, has experienced her first 100 days in government through an intense reality check. The fear instilled by her legend and far-right profile has waned until she has gained the semblance of a reliable partner in Brussels. Since the leader of the brothers of Italy was sworn in on October 22, 2022 and formed a team that made half Europe tremble, his board has operated with an automatic pilot, similar to that of his predecessor Mario Draghi. The prime minister has inevitably become a defender of everything the European establishment feared to destroy. Today, as the road map prepared by the previous government has been exhausted, it will be their turn to navigate using their own map, which is still unknown.
Meloni’s first 100 days – the average life expectancy of an Italian prime minister is around 400 days – will be marked by the passage of a budget law essentially drafted by Draghi’s team, which reflects the prudence of that administration. The only innovations his executive wanted to introduce ended in normative clumsiness. Such is the case with the law against rave parties, which has dealt with Justice Minister Carlo Nordio and coalition partner Forza Italia. And we had to back down. Since he also backed down with his proposal to raise the cash payment limit – a fabulous boost for tax evasion in one of the European countries most affected by this practice – his announced tax cut was essentially limited to favoring the upper fringe zone of the self-employed. He also scrapped the gas price support he had promised to curb prices, provoking the wrath of the gas station companies, who this week called the first strike of his term (Italy enjoyed years of social peace). In short, the symbolic decisions caused problems. And the rest was the result of inertia towards the previous government. “It is normal for there to be mistakes at the beginning. But they have been corrected,” explains a member of the Meloni board.
The far-right impulse, beyond such acrimony as the appointment of Ignazio Benito La Russa, the party’s founder and avowed admirer of Benito Mussolini, as President of the Senate or the treatment of the vast majority of journalists as enemies of his executive branch, has been watered down according to technical exigencies. Political scientist Giovanni Orsina even believes that most initiatives “would not even react to a right-wing government”. “He applied a lot of realism. And aside from a few somewhat disordered movements, for which it had to back down, it has done what any government in its place would do, even of a different persuasion. If you sign the Mede now [el Mecanismo Europeo de Estabilidad, al que se oponía ella personalmente]We don’t even talk anymore. The only international conflict was with France [una torpeza diplomática a cuenta de la inmigración], but it is the result of an unintentional mistake, a sin of inexperience. On the rest of the issues, it doesn’t seem to be a right-wing government, but rather an ordinary centre-right government. She has not made any reform that could put her into perspective in any other way, ”says Orsina.
The war in Ukraine shaped international politics. There were no disagreements with the rest of the international allies and support for Kyiv was unreserved. In fact, a trip to the Ukrainian capital is planned ahead of the first anniversary of the Russian invasion, for which Meloni could stop in Warsaw and meet the prime minister. Mateusz Morawiecki, Ally and partner of the European Conservatives group, which she chairs. The meeting in the Polish capital would be the only allusion to the dreaded Visegrad group [Eslovaquia, Hungría, Polonia y República Checa]. Until now, Meloni has devoted all her energies to pleasing and being in good harmony with the Brussels establishment. In the full negotiations for the reformulation of the post-pandemic European recovery plan and just before the signing of the Mede reform, the executive of the leader of the brothers of Italy avoided any kind of confrontation that had nothing to do with a non-negotiating point at the heart of your schedule. An alternative path was also sought for immigration. “It’s a pretty important sign. There is indeed a break with the previous government, not very important but not secondary either. They managed to come up with an approach to the issue that pleases the voters and doesn’t break with Europe,” emphasizes Orsina.
Giorgia Meloni receives European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on January 9.GUGLIELMO MANGIAPANE (Portal)
The executive preferred not to close Italian ports and avoid the naval blockade that Meloni himself proposed during the election campaign. In return, it forces the NGO lifeboats arriving in Italy to resort to ports that are further and further away from where the shipwrecked were taken in. The decision is legal and does not violate the law of the sea or European regulations, but it significantly hinders the work of NGOs and incidentally sends them an aggressive signal.
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no contradiction
The Italian prime minister, that’s her great advantage now, she has no opposition. Italian politics is in a semi-comatose state, with the left attempting to re-establish itself – the Democratic Party will not have a new secretary by March – and a central space is beginning to form, led by Carlo Calenda of Ex -Renz, head of the poster for action. But Meloni’s wear and tear is starting to show in the polls, where she’s down half a point this week. Even in the Council of Ministers, where his decisions do not always convince all his partners (Forza Italia and the Liga). Nando Pangocelli, president of the polling company Ipsos, responsible for the Corriere della Sera polls, attributes this “to the fuel issue”. [a la retirada de la bonificación para la gasolina]. “It has generated some dissatisfaction. Two out of three Italians expected some measure to contain prices. But you can’t say the honeymoon is over yet,” he says.
Pagnoncelli also believes that Meloni has changed his position on big issues since coming to power. But he insists he must watch how he will act now on three issues that will mark citizen support: “First, he must prevent the country from going into recession. If the conditions of the families deteriorate, they inevitably withdraw their trust. The second aspect is the cohesion of the governing coalition: the centre-right party has the same number of voters as five years ago, but the balance of power has changed. Brothers of Italy absorbed a relevant portion of Lega and Forza Italia voters. And that means there’s very stiff competition: the more Meloni grows for them, the more tension there will be. Allies, afraid of losing support, will be tempted to resist internally. And the third issue is related to the possibility of making better use of European funds, a unique opportunity to carry out the reforms to come”. If the usual Italian turmoil allows it.
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