Rather than changing it, Meloni has chosen not to let Italy slip away

On the same topic:

In a few days, Friday to be exact, the Meloni government will reach an important turning point. This turning point corresponds to a round number, one that only four governments have reached in the history of the Italian Republic before the current one. On Friday, July 18, Meloni's government will have reached exactly one thousand days. Before the current Prime Minister, those who reached that milestone were the second Berlusconi government (which lasted 1,412 days), the fourth Berlusconi government (which lasted 1,287 days), the first Craxi government (which lasted 1,093 days), and the Renzi government (which lasted 1,024 days). The one thousand days of the Meloni government quickly recall the last thousand days of government that sparked public debate, namely that of Matteo Renzi. And trying to reflect on the differences between the last two rather long-lived governments of our Republic can help us construct a perhaps original assessment of the Meloni government's experience . The Renzi government and the Meloni government are difficult to compare for a whole series of reasons that go beyond the character of today's and yesterday's prime ministers.

Renzi, in his thousand days, sought to change Italy, to overturn the institutions like a sock, to radically amend the Constitution, to challenge the conservatism of both the right and the left , to overcome the perfect bicameral system, to lift Italy out of the doldrums of concertation, to breathe new life into businesses, to revitalize the labor market. As Prime Minister, he acted more like a CEO than, like some of his predecessors, a condominium administrator. Renzi governed by fits and starts, leveraging a highly creative majority against a minority within the party that wore him down day after day. But at the heart of his agenda, the theory of "scrapping" aside, was a twofold idea to try to transform Italy. First, to change the left's governing culture, in order to try to change the country as well. And second, to play with the strategy of continuous rupture to try to reform Italy. Renzi, in his own way, then crashing into the constitutional referendum, chose as his political priority to be divisive in an attempt to be transversal.

Eleven years after that government experience, Meloni, unlike Renzi, having a solid, stable, and, so to speak, quarrelsome majority on her side, and above all, a popular investiture that Renzi never had in government, has chosen to follow a very different path from that of the former Scrapyard Worker. And, probably with Renzi's photo in some drawer of her desk, she has attempted to play a somewhat opposite game, which helps us understand more about Meloni's 1,000 days. Renzi, as we've said, was divisive. Meloni, in her first 1,000 days in government, has done everything to be less divisive, both in words and in deeds. And pursuing this strategy has led Meloni, in these first 1,000 days, to avoid overdoing things, to keep her voice low, to shun divisive reforms, to focus on pragmatism, to sometimes administer the country more like a CFO—an executive director, as they say—than a CEO, a managing director.

Meloni, in these thousand days of government, has paid attention to details, smoothed out rough edges, administered rather than governed. While Renzi wanted to change the country, challenging it, Meloni, without wanting to challenge Italy, chose to manage it, and in these thousand days, it cannot be said she hasn't done it well. She has done it well on foreign policy, which remains Meloni's flagship, despite the embarrassment of recent months caused by the Trumpian tsunami. She has done it well in Europe, where she has chosen to distance herself progressively, decisively, and hopefully sustainably, from right-wing extremism, to the point that today, in the European Parliament, she is allied, in support of the von der Leyen Commission, more with her former enemies, from the PSE to Macron, than with her lifelong friends, from Orbán to Vox. She has done it well, of course, on Ukraine, where Meloni has often given her best in these thousand days. She did it well, like a perfect CFO, managing, together with Minister Giorgetti, the public finances, keeping the spread in check, boosting the stock market, and doing what was necessary, even if not sufficient, to make Italy more attractive. She did it well, courageously, even on the issue of military spending, challenging a segment of the right-wing electorate here, the same one that sees greater danger in Ukraine's rearmament than in Russia's.

It did so in some industrial transactions in which the government moved more skillfully than even the Draghi government, such as the TIM transaction, with the sale of the network to KKR; the ITA transaction, sold to Lufthansa; and the MPS transaction, in which the government intends to exit its shareholding within a year, perhaps after helping MPS acquire Mediobanca.

Renzi, as we've said, wanted to change the country. Meloni wants to manage it. Renzi wanted to overturn the institutions, Meloni wants to improve them. Renzi used speed as a method, Meloni uses waiting as a strategy. Renzi wasn't afraid to attack the future, Meloni wants to try to better manage the present. Renzi did everything he could to scrap the left, Meloni isn't doing everything he could to avoid scrapping the right. Renzi tried to talk about the future, Meloni chose to focus on identity. Renzi wanted to challenge the left's constituency, with the Jobs Act, for example, Meloni simply wants to lead it. Renzi also wanted to please the right, Meloni has no intention of pleasing the left. Renzi was transversal, but ended up being disliked by neither the right nor the left. Meloni wants to please the right, the entire right, but she's also looking for a way to gain respect from the left, and indeed, finding left-wing voters who detest Meloni isn't easy.

Meloni's desire not to be divisive is perhaps one of the most important traits of her governance, of her cautious, sometimes immobile approach. It is one of the reasons that allowed the government to achieve a small miracle, unseen in almost any European country for years and unseen in any Italian government: being, after a thousand days, the favorite for the next election. During the Second Republic, Italy never saw a governing coalition win an election, and across Europe in the last decade, the only one to have managed to stay in government was Pedro Sánchez in Spain. But partly due to her own merits, the technocratic populism in government, and the identitarian narrative on issues involving cultural battles with zero impact on the government, and partly due to the shortcomings of others (see the opposition), Meloni today finds herself in a position diametrically opposed to that which Renzi held after a thousand days. The former prime minister, after a thousand days, had reached the end of his career. Meloni, after a thousand days, seems to be only at the beginning of hers.

And the difference in power management between Renzi and Meloni can also be seen in another detail. Renzi, driven by the desire to do everything to change Italy, attempted to turn the referendum on his own identity reform, the end of bicameralism, into a catalyst for the subsequent elections: we know how it ended. Meloni, fearing Renzi's fate, chose to forgo some identity battles, such as presidentialism and the premiership, focusing instead on a single, potentially transversal reform: the justice system. The result: before the elections, the only constitutional referendum held will be the one specifically related to justice, while the other possible referendum, on the prime ministership, if it ever takes place, will be held after the general election, in the next legislature. The assessment of Meloni's first thousand days in government, despite the difficulty in demonstrating a vision for the future, is one that can only be positive, despite some setbacks.

But rather than focusing on the past, what should be at the center of the Prime Minister's agenda today, more than ever, should address everything that went wrong during these thousand days of government and that deserves to be at the center of the future agenda. Not to change the country, but to try to use a perhaps unrepeatable historical situation—a solid majority, a stable government, a weak opposition, unquestioning Europeanism, and European funds galore—as an opportunity to avoid holding Italy back from the major challenges facing the future. What Meloni has lacked in her first thousand days in office is the government's almost total absence of support for businesses, of combating Italy's bureaucratization, of striving for innovation, of the ability to harness creativity to make Italy even more attractive, of interpreting Meloni's Italy's role as a bridgehead in Europe, not to play a game of interdictions or to parry blows, but to try to play a game of leadership. We won't say, as is often the case, that Italy—something no government has ever managed to do—must bang its fists on the table, hand over its cards to Brussels, and impose a new agenda in Europe. But what would be enough for Italy, in Europe, would be much less: having an agenda.

In Europe, Meloni has chosen to be on the right side of history, but without a vision for turning this positioning into a useful engine for building political battles. The reason for this embarrassment and difficulty lies not so much in the prime minister's incompetence as in the fact that to count in Europe, one must be part of the major European groups. Instead, Meloni is now playing the role of a free agent in Europe, without a European group capable of supporting her. In Italy, however, Meloni has her back covered, she has a strong majority, a party that supports her, and a ruling class that is less clueless than it is portrayed. But by pursuing a healthy policy of inconsistency with the past, Meloni has stopped thinking about the future. And to try to think about the future again, there are two ways. On the one hand, acknowledge what Meloni has become, without being afraid to present herself to voters with a more moderate face than in the past (yesterday it was: I'm Giorgia, I'm a mother, I'm a Christian; today it should be: I'm Meloni, I'm a prime minister, I've changed). On the other hand, he must find the courage to use the final months of his government not only to disown the nonsense the right-wingers spewed during the election campaign (naval blockades, port closures, protectionism, nationalizations), but also to do two things: address the self-imposed tariffs that Italy has chosen to impose on itself for many years (for example, by taking steps towards competition, for example, by investing in innovation, two major black holes of Melonism) and by betting on a right-wing idea that would allow the right to be both coherent and courageous. In three words: lower taxes.

Taxes, for Meloni, are probably the most painful aspect of her government experience, and a right-wing majority that helped raise the tax rate from 41.4% in 2022 to 42.6% in 2024 cannot help but consider its mission a failure. Not dividing is a wise choice, being prudent is understandable, and wanting to administer rather than revolutionize is justifiable. But asking a right-wing government not to betray its ideas when it comes to bureaucracy, efficiency, and taxes should be a request worthy even of a high-end CFO. If, as has been rumored, elections were to be held in May 2027, bringing forward the natural election in October 2027 by a few months, Meloni would still have approximately 660 days of government. Using them to achieve something right-wing, rather than focusing on bribes and handouts, should be something within the reach of even those who don't want to change the country but simply want to manage it with care.

More on these topics: