She has led the Italian government since 2022. It is Giorgia Meloni, who on Friday celebrates a record longevity in this post since the end of World War II, reinforcing her “credibility” to launch her electoral campaign for the 2027 parliamentary elections.
“This is a milestone that I greet with gratitude and a deep sense of responsibility,” wrote on X the head of government and president of the Fratelli d’Italia party (FDI, far-right). “The results are there, but we are fully aware of everything that remains to be accomplished.”
“This stability exists thanks to the Italian people, who entrusted us with their confidence in 2022. It is a confidence we have never treated as a blank check and that we will never take for granted,” she added.
Giorgia Meloni, 49, thus surpasses Silvio Berlusconi in the duration of a single government—but with four governments the “Cavaliere” will have governed for nearly ten years in total.
For the occasion, thousands of supporters are expected Friday in Bari, in the Puglia region (southeast). Fratelli d’Italia has prepared a roughly thirty-page brochure listing all the government’s successes in just under four years.
More than a million additional people employed, unemployment at a record low, 5.8% in July, a 21-billion-euro cut in personal taxes, and an 80% drop in illegal immigrant arrivals to Italy, among other measures, the FDI lists.
The leading Italian daily newspapers, of all political persuasions, have laid out an assessment of her government.
La Repubblica, left-leaning, acknowledges that the administration has managed to stabilize public accounts and drive the spread, the gap between German and Italian interest rates, from 233 basis points to below 80.
La Stampa and the Corriere della Sera, on the other hand, emphasize her unwavering support for Ukraine, despite the reticence of her deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, opposed to sending military aid to Kyiv.
Nevertheless, Giorgia Meloni “will have to say how she plans to use these last months before the vote, it’s a question that interests many,” said Thursday Flavia Perina, editorialist for La Stampa, to the foreign press in Rome, as all observers bet on elections in April 2027.
In the same frame, Alessandra Sardoni, political journalist for the La7 television, criticized “the realism of Giorgia Meloni (…) becoming an alibi for immobility.”
“The government has given central importance to communication and communication has often substituted for action,” she added.
