Debt Upgrade Latest Win for Giorgia Meloni, Who Defies Critics by Bringing Stability to Italy’s Economy

Stop the presses. On Friday, Moody’s raised Italy’s credit rating to Baa2 with a stable outlook.“We are pleased with Moody’s upgrade, the first in 23 years. This is further confirmation of the regained confidence in this government and therefore, in Italy,” said economy minister Giancarlo Giorgetti.And it’s yet another win for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom the Economist’s Christopher Lockwood recently lauded as “an exceptional politician.”While acknowledging the uphill climb she faces in jumpstarting Italy’s economy, Mr. Lockwood underscored the key metric that has defined Signora Meloni’s reign: “Under her leadership, there has been political stability in Italy for the first time in 15 years.”In his foreword to the Indian edition of Signora Meloni’s memoir, “I Am Giorgia,” the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, described Italy’s first female premier as “an extraordinary political leader who combines ideas and heart.”Yet a former center-left Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, told Corriere della Sera, that Giorgia Meloni “has achieved nothing.”Moreover in an interview with Spain’s Agenda Pública, Mr. Prodi derided both Signora Meloni and Italy in one fell swoop.The good professor maintained that if “Meloni thinks she can be a mediator between Europe and the United States, she is fundamentally wrong. That role can only be European, and in my experience there is no Europe if there is no Franco-German engine. The two pistons, so to speak.”The former premier’s monologue was a study in subservience: “The euro was created because Kohl and Chirac wanted it. They accepted Italy and Spain, but there was a forceful push.”Mr. Prodi’s tenure as president of the European Commission may have colored his geopolitical perception of Italy. That is, he came to believe that Rome is but a peripheral junior partner of Paris and Berlin — a notion that Signora Meloni vehemently refutes.Still, national greatness has never existed in the lexicon of the left.Whereas Elly Schlein, Giuseppe “Giuseppi” Conte and, to a lesser extent, President Sergio Mattarella have an image of Italy as a biscotti-and-bella figura polity, Signora Meloni is a proud nationalist who understands that the Seed of Aeneas is a prime mover in world affairs.Signora Meloni’s proposed reform of the judiciary, the Ponte sullo Stretto, the Mattei Plan for Africa, the Albanian Migration Protocol and her push to make the premier a directly-elected head of government rankle the left.Driven by fear and envy, left-wing intellectuals, press luminaries and politicos continue their overt and covert push to diminish, tarnish and topple the Meloni government.According to the conservative daily, La Verita’, an advisor to Mr. Mattarella for the affairs of the Supreme Defense Council, Francesco Saverio Garofani, was plotting against Signora Meloni.Though Mr. Garofani claimed he was speaking in jest at a dinner with friends, La Verita’s editor, Maurizio Belpietro, stated that the 63-year old advisor was among several individuals at the Quirinale “who are agitating in the hope of tripping up the prime minister.”Placing a call to Mr. Matterella, Signora Meloni asked and received a meeting. Though she decried Mr. Garofani’s “inappropriate behavior,” the prime minister accepted the head of state’s assurances that nothing untoward was afoot.Case closed.Nevertheless, Mr. Garofani should have resigned.When a chief advisor to the president of the Italian Republic openly seeks a “providential jolt” — in Mr. Garofani’s own words — to unseat the nation’s head of government, it’s much ado about something big.The gray eminence of Italian journalism, Vittorio Feltri, who is the editorial director of the center-right daily Il Giornale, rebuked Mr. Garofani: A supposedly sober-minded advisor to the Quirinale should never say that “we must find ways to prevent the right from winning again.”Currently, the center-right governs 14 of Italy’s 20 regions.At the midpoint of Prime Minister Meloni’s five-year term, the national polls find that her Fratelli d’Italia party is favored by 30.4 percent of the electorate; Elly Schlein’s Partito Democratico remains mired below 22 percent; and Giuseppe Conte’s Movimento Cinque Stelle party hovers at 12 percent. In this weekend’s regional elections, the conservatives are expected to remain in power in Veneto. But the center-right might eke out wins in Campania and Puglia. Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain. Signora Meloni’s coherent, dynamic and proactive governance has reanimated the Magic Boot — making Italy a pillar of stability in an increasingly unstable world.

Debt Upgrade Latest Win for Giorgia Meloni, Who Defies Critics by Bringing Stability to Italy’s Economy

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