Critics are quick to punch holes in the case for Meloni’s influence on the world stage. Despite some upbeat headlines, Italy’s economy is stuck in second gear, weakening Rome’s credibility on big policy decisions. And despite the current dismal state of Franco-German relations, Paris and Berlin are still, structurally speaking, pace-setters for European policy, with Poland under Prime Minister Donald Tusk an increasingly crucial player.
Opponents in Italy also warn that Meloni’s government is using a campaign against surrogate pregnancies to quietly erode LGBTQ+ rights. “As can be expected from a ‘God, homeland and family’ brand conservative, Meloni and her party have long been hostile to the advancement of LGBTQ+ equality in the realm of domestic life, ardently opposing same-sex parenthood,” Andrea Carlo, a British-Italian researcher, wrote in an op-ed for POLITICO last year.
In November, U.S. voters will choose between incumbent Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump. If the former prevails, Meloni may well carry forward a relationship that both the White House and her own office define as “positive.” If it’s Trump, she could cash in on months of discrete efforts to woo the MAGA right, becoming a European ally less toxic than Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — a sort of Maggie Thatcher to his Ronald Reagan, to use a highly imperfect analogy.
“She is by far in Italy the closest politician to Trump,” said Marco Damilano, an Italian political analyst. “And on the European level, her government would be best positioned” to build ties with the Trump administration.
Despite a recent election defeat in Sardinia, Meloni’s approval rating — 41 percent — remains improbably high for an Italian PM two years into the job. The question is now: What will she do with her political capital, and will she remain faithful to the pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO camp in the event Trump returns to the White House and she becomes High Priestess of the European Right?
For now, Meloni is proving particularly adept at the Italian diplomatic tradition of playing both sides. Rather than become a European bogeywoman à la Orbán, Meloni has remained inside the tent while exerting growing influence over EU policy over the past two years.
Asked to describe his preferred outcome for the U.S. presidential election, Nicola Procaccini, who co-leads Meloni’s faction in the European Parliament, said: “We hope that Trump will win,” though he was quick to follow that statement with a qualifier: “But obviously Giorgia is also the leader of the Italian government and she has a very good relationship with the president of the United States, Joe Biden.”
Meloni’s camp is trying to have it both ways. On one hand, she’s doing a lot to ensure her pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO credentials are in good order, including traveling to Kyiv on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion in February and hosting a special, Ukraine-focused gathering of G7 countries that same month.
On the other, she’s doing her best to court anti-Ukraine MAGA Republicans by building ties with Trump’s camp thanks to Florida-based members of her far right Brothers of Italy party.
Meloni drew crowds when she attended the 2020 CPAC in Florida. And her camp is working hard to build ties with Trump’s entourage in the United States. “As the leader of a major European economy, she would be the point of reference for Trump in Europe,” argued Andrea di Giuseppe, a Brothers of Italy lawmaker based in North America who’s in charge of outreach to U.S. Republicans.
Meloni’s openness to Trump is sure to deepen suspicion among Ukraine’s staunchest allies in Europe about her long-term position, especially after the Italian prime minister was caught complaining last November about “Ukraine fatigue” to an African leader who turned out to be a prank caller.
But amid a standoff between Brussels and Hungary over aid for Ukraine, it was Meloni who helped to convince Orbán to sign off on a €50 billion aid package for Ukraine — an achievement rooted in a months-long charm offensive to woo the rebellious leader.
According to the same EPP operative who spoke on condition of anonymity, the two leaders whose support von der Leyen will most likely rely on to get over the line are Petr Fiala, Czechia’s prime minister, and Meloni.
Hence von der Leyen’s hectic schedule of travel to Italy. She was in Rome twice in 2023 and once in early 2024, twice in Emilia Romagna and once in Lampedusa, a hotspot for migrants arriving by boat off Sicily, coupled with several one-on-one encounters on the sidelines of international conferences.
“Meloni is unavoidable if von der Leyen wants to be certain that she has a qualified majority in Council,” said the operative. “The constant travel to Italy says it all.”
Although Meloni’s right wing party grouping won’t be the largest in the European Parliament by far (that honor is likely to remain with the EPP, on course to scoop up 177 seats, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls), it’s increasingly seen as an ideological driver forcing the EPP to the right. Like von der Leyen, EPP chairman Manfred Weber has courted Meloni during a series of one-on-one meetings, fanning talk that the Italian prime minister could make a bid to join the conservative grouping.
EPP operatives talk down the possibility of Meloni formally joining their group. But there’s no prohibition against ad hoc alliances with the conservative bloc — an idea that Procaccini, the group’s co-chair, appears to embrace.
“I have a very frank talk daily with Manfred Weber,” he said. “We have a lot of points in common with the EPP. We have a strategy also in common. Majorities in the European Parliament are not the same as in national parliaments — they can change with every vote.”