Giorgia Meloni, Defying Liberal Critics, Nears a Milestone as Longest-Serving Premier in Modern Times

On September 4, Giorgia Meloni will become Italy’s longest continuously serving prime minister since Benito Mussolini. She has reinvigorated her country, but she is neither an autocrat nor a totalitarian.Rome’s first female prime minister — a creature of the center- right — has made the Magic Boot a model of political stability, and she is steering a course toward economic prudence and fiscal rectitude.The global commentariat has been forced to concede, as the Economist has recently pointed out, that Signora Meloni gets results. Indeed, on her watch, Italy’s budget deficit has fallen to around 3 percent of gross domestic product from more than 8 percent during the pandemic. What’s more, per the Economist, Signora Meloni “has crafted an effective relationship with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. She has unwaveringly supported Ukraine, defying those on the Italian right with a soft spot for Russia. And she has stood up to Donald Trump over the war in Iran and his attacks on the pope.”Even the New York Times’s Roger Cohen notes how Meloni’s Italy “has proved more stable” than Emmanuel Macron’s France. Ironically Il Messaggero’s Roberto Napoletano writes of Italy that “despite the fact that today our public debt in absolute terms is 378 billion lower than France’s, and that we have a primary budget surplus” while France’s deficit exceeds 5 percent of GDP, “in the past year between April 2025 and April 2026 Italy spent 85 billion euros on interest compared to France’s 66 billion.”He traces the discrepancy to the fact that “the French Republic holds those five-to-six-year government bonds that it locked in at very low rates close to German ones.” Mr. Napoletano adds that “We are facing the paradox that today Italy has become a safe country,” yet it pays more on its debt “than a country that has become unsafe like France.”Signora Meloni is a forward-leaning politician with a plan. Rome’s burgeoning global profile owes much to the clarity, continuity, and coherence she has introduced to Palazzo Chigi. Despite significant political and judicial setbacks — at home and abroad — she regroups and forges ahead.From the bridge to Sicily or Ponte sullo Stretto, to the Mattei Plan to improve Africa’s economy, to the electoral reform proposal or Premierato, to her diplomatic efforts to bridge the divide between Israel and Turkey — her government is plotting a course that promotes the national interest and Western values.Signora Meloni’s reach even extends to the final frontier.According to ANSA, the University of Calabria is partnering with Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics to build an advanced telescope facility on its campus.Il Sole 24 Ore reports that this breakthrough collaboration was just unveiled at the university’s Rende campus in an event featuring the minister for universities and research, Anna Maria Bernini.“Plans are also in place to install an antenna for the international ‘Solaris’ network, which will be used to study the Sun, solar activity and plasma in the upper atmosphere,” Il Sole reports, all of which will directly support major European Space Agency space missions.Meanwhile, despite the global economic upheavals — and energy price hikes — caused by the wars in Iran and Ukraine, Reuters is reporting that “Italian business and consumer confidence rose in August, data showed on Friday, in a positive sign for the prospects of the euro zone’s third largest economy.” Though Singora Meloni’s “government in April cut its economic growth outlook to 0.6 percent for this year and next, reflecting surging energy prices and turmoil in the Middle East,” per Reuters, the news on the GDP front was more salutary: “gross domestic product data in the first and second quarters came in stronger than expected, suggesting some economic resilience to the Middle-East crisis.” Such economic vitality will confound and vex the left’s Giuseppe “Giuseppi” Conte and Elly Schlein. As will the news that the Italian left’s hero du jour, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain, has been forced into an ideological retreat — according to La Verità’s Maurizio Belpietro — over the Ceuta migrant crisis, essentially adopting Signora Meloni’s more stringent migration policy.Signora Meloni’s forward-looking stance exemplifies the leadership ideal espoused by the poet James Freeman Clarke: “A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation.”

Giorgia Meloni, Defying Liberal Critics, Nears a Milestone as Longest-Serving Premier in Modern Times

Giorgia Meloni, Defying Liberal Critics, Nears a Milestone as Longest-Serving Premier in Modern Times

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