A disaster in competitiveness and welfare, successes in finances and stability. Meloni's thousand days.

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Meloni's thousand days , the time needed to avoid hasty judgments is now behind us. It's time for a comprehensive review. Mine, I'll write it in five paragraphs. Leaving aside foreign policy: the prime minister is no longer anti-European , she's on the right side of Ukraine, and the difficulties lie with Trump, with whom she vainly hoped to have a substantial relationship beyond personal compliments.

Stability . In the history of the Republic, after the 1,412 days of Berlusconi II and the 1,287 of Berlusconi IV, it is already certain that the third longest-lasting government is the Meloni government, which will have no difficulty surpassing the 1,053 days of Craxi's government and the 1,024 of Renzi. The government's true guarantee clause is the current left-wing opposition: as long as it is engaged in the race to catch up with Conte and, soon, Landini, best wishes. The only real threat to Meloni's leadership lies in her majority . It is Matteo Salvini. Who every day erects barricades to allow him to mask the real defeat, namely that of Salvini himself. Meanwhile, the government has further centralized legislative power. Parliament counts for little or nothing. The Quirinale's watchful eye is not enough to reverse the trend. And the government's constitutional reforms are crippled: from the sinking differentiated federalism to the premiership that has ended up on the rocks. Vote: we'll see at the end.

Public finances . A mandatory judgment. The Meloni government has reassured control over budget balances, bringing them into line with the European Stability Pact. 2024 was the year of the greatest reduction in deficit and debt in the history of the Republic, with a decisive halt to the wild peaks caused by the obscene construction super bonus. But the recovery of public finances has many flaws . It occurred by dramatically increasing revenues thanks to fiscal drag, with over €20 billion in additional revenues because nominally inflated incomes for inflation trigger higher real tax rates, and because the transformation of bonuses from contribution relief to tax relief grafted onto personal income tax triggers additional real tax rate thresholds that increase state revenues. A serious government would decide to prevent the state from gaining additional revenues from inflation, automatically translating them into real tax relief for taxpayers. The truly positive aspect of the tax measures so far is Deputy Minister Leo's work on friendly compliance for businesses. Rating: 7 (minus 7).

Welfare . The latest two budget laws focus on resources for tax breaks for lower-income workers. However, continuing with the bonus policy will dispel any prospect of structural reform of personal income tax (IRPEF), further increasing the injustice of a tax system in which 15% of total taxpayers pay over two-thirds of the income tax and everything necessary to guarantee public services to the remaining 85% of Italians. It's a double disgrace. Score: 4.

Productive economy . In fact , Italian industry has paid the price for the last two budget laws . The repeal of the ACE (Italian Economic and Financial Planning Authority), which followed the repeal of the Patent Box, is a traumatic delay in Industry 4.0, the only real measure that generated a double-digit percentage recovery in post-Covid productive investment; Industry 5.0, designed specifically to make it unattractive to most businesses. So far, businesses have been deaf to the demand for a truly extraordinary plan that combines the reorganization of incentives, a growth-friendly tax system, and massive simplifications. After two years of declining industrial production and amid the great storm of Trump's tariffs, we're just not there yet . Score: 4.

Competitiveness. The Meloni government's two annual competition laws have been a bitter disappointment. The Italian government and politicians have no intention of truly opening up to competition the many sectors of the Italian market that are currently deprived of competition. In the recent competition bill, it is clear once again that the rules aimed at requiring local authorities to liquidate or sell loss-making public companies or those acquired outside the designated sectors are rules without serious, written penalties for non-compliance. This has continued since 2014, with Manzoni-like cries that allow public elephantiasis to remain intact and even expand. As for the blunder made with the resounding European rejection of the illegitimate conditions imposed by the government on Unicredit for its takeover bid for BPM, it confirms that the government's golden power has slipped out of control , because it believes it can dictate unfair conditions for any market transaction, as if we were Communist China. Rating: 3.

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