Prime Minister Meloni may be a leader of uncommon integrity and substance, but 2024 will surely test her mettle. She must remain true to her debt-reduction free-market principles. Yet the task will be a complex one. 

Though a fiscal conservative, Ms. Meloni succeeded in moderating the European Union’s new fiscal rules for member states. The EU’s so-called Stability Pact’s original terms would have imposed a budgetary straight-jacket on Italy. 

The Italian premier also forged key agreements with Tunisia and Albania that may well ameliorate or mitigate the burgeoning migration crisis that was a key factor propelling her rightist coalition into power.

Yet while Signora Meloni’s accession last year to the premiership “sent a shiver down the spines of centrists across the Continent and beyond,” Politico recently anointed her Europe’s “Doer No. 1.”

Even so, Brussels, shivered on December 21 when the Italian Chamber of Deputies rejected the European Stability Mechanism, a banking reform approved by the rest of the EU states. 

The stability mechanism,  an intergovernmental body that came into being in 2012 during the Continent’s sovereign debt crisis, is a backstop for Eurozone nations that find themselves in a sticky financial wicket — a failsafe bailout option.  During the aforementioned crisis, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain accepted such a bailout.

The fear among Ms. Meloni’s coalition, though, is that acceding to the mechanism’s terms would amount to a diminution of Italy’s sovereignty — and could lead to a restructuring of its significant public debt.

Moreover, Italian conservatives recoil from the stigma associated with an ESM bailout. Before she was elected premier, Signora Meloni vowed to never seek credit lines under the stability mechanism. Italy’s failure to ratify the pact now casts an uncertain light on the future of the EU’s stability mechanism.

Like the entrepreneurs who inspire Signora Meloni’s economic agenda, she is a risk taker. However, the prime minister isn’t a riverboat gambler. Hers are calculated risks. 

In order to join Europe’s common currency — under the founding Maastricht Treaty — a member state’s budget deficit cannot exceed 3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.  Yet more than a few eurozone nations, including France and Italy, now have deficits well above that mark.

Enter Signora Meloni. On December 20, Politico reported that after “weeks of shuttle diplomacy” among “the EU’s power trio — Berlin, Paris and Rome,” a “breakthrough” had been achieved. The outcome sets a slower pace for Italy’s debt and deficit reduction plans. 

Throughout the year, meanwhile, Ms. Meloni’s opponents on the left had been accusing her of mismanaging Italy’s bid for more funding under the EU’s Covid National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The opposition claimed that while the other EU member states had efficiently selected critical infrastructure projects — and spent the allotted funds from Brussels — Signora Meloni’s Italy had dithered, squandering the best economic jumpstart opportunity since the Marshall Plan.

Moreover, the critics said the prime minister’s poor planning would put Rome’s third and fourth installments at risk. Nevertheless, Italy successfully completed the application and received its third tranche — and has the distinction of being the only EU country to be green-lit for the fourth wave of 16.5 billion euros.

The Prime Minister has demonstrated the courage of her convictions, informing China’s Xi Jinping recently that Italy would no longer be a member of Cathay’s Belt and Road Initiative after the March 2024 renewal date. Yet she faces minefields aplenty.

While attending the premier’s Atreju Festival — an annual gathering of conservatives — at Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo, Prime Minister Sunak compared the Italian prime minister to Margaret Thatcher, who “understood that ideas are only important if they can be implemented.”

A kinship has developed between Signora Meloni and Mr. Sunak since both took office one year ago. Similar in ideological outlook, they have also forged a personal friendship. “Your priorities are also mine,” said Giorgia to her newfound friend at the London climate summit Rishi held in November

Moreover, both leaders agree that illegal immigration will be the ruination of Europe — and they are implementing policies to stem such flows from North Africa. The British premier has declared “we have to apply Thatcher’s radicalism to illegal immigration.”

In November, Signora Meloni inked an agreement with the Albanian premier, Edi Rama, whereby Tirana would process asylum seekers rescued at sea by the Italian navy, coast guard and police vessels. Predictably, the left skewered both center-right politicos. 

The president of the left-wing Più Europa party, Riccardo Magi, said the two leaders “found common ground on an issue that today characterizes the conservative front — that is to attack the rule of law in regards to migrant rights — and they do this at a time when migration is rising and protection rights are being curtailed.”

Adding to such perceptions is a video circulating of the pre-Palazzo Chigi Meloni castigating Sharia law, claiming “there is a problem of compatibility between Islamic culture and the values and rights of our civilization.”

Indeed, death by stoning for extramarital sex and amputation of the hand for theft run contrary to the jurisprudential tradition of Cesare Beccaria. Sigora Meloni’s espousal of Western values, along with her commitment to eradicate the trafficking of human cargo across the Mediterranean, contributed to her victory at the polls — and will prove a leading challenge for the new year.