Italy: 2024, the year that smiles on the right Giorgia Meloni

The new year smiles on the Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, 47 years old, who on 11 February will receive the Argentine president Javier Milei at Palazzo Chigi in Rome, who the following day will be received in audience by Pope Francis.

Last October Meloni completed one year in government and in 2024 there are all the conditions to do so consolidate popular support around 30% for his Fratelli d’Italia party, very far from the first opposition force, the centre-left Democratic Party, which has 19.2%

From January 1st it is also interim president of the G7, the super exclusive summit that brings together the seven industrialized countries of the Earth, in which Italy is accompanied by the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Canada. You 21 tours are planned around the world and other important commitments in a world situation shaken by wars in the Middle East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He will also have to govern this new year the many problems that he has managed to keep under control so far and will face a very important test between 6 and 9 June: the elections to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, in which the polls predict a perhaps decisive advance of the right of which Meloni is part.

This push of theextreme right” could produce a dramatic change in the orientation of the 27-country European Union, breaking the dominance of the alliance of forces that has governed the EU since its founding in 1993. A majority composed of the Christian-tinged people’s party, Social Democracy, liberals and greens.

This would be a historic result in which Meloni, leader of the right-wing transnational party of European conservatives and reformists, would have a leading role. Observers do not believe that there will be a historic collapse of the European Union, which could endanger its very existence today. For the first time this possibility enters into concrete debates.

Meloni leads a political force whose origins are linked to the Italian Social Movement founded by Giorgio Almirante and other former officials of the Republic of Salófounded by Benito Mussolini in the last phase of fascist regime.

In recent years Giorgia has managed to overcome the handicap of the past and have her Fratelli d’Italia party accepted the main Italian political force. In this year and three months at the helm of the government, he has managed to consolidate the legitimacy of his political option. To many more They are not convinced of the relationship with the fascist past.

But as soon as she entered the government, Meloni made a strategic move that contributed to consolidating it. He traveled to the United States where President Joe Biden was dealing with the pain of war caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In short words expressed his solidarity with the West and alliance with the United Stateswhich Biden seized on.

Since then the Italian alliance with the United States had its concrete consolidation and the government of Rome he didn’t move an inch of that support line.

The international club of ultra-conservatives

This alliance with Biden has consolidated with another reality. The European party of conservatives and reformists formed by Meloni it is based on the political logic of the Republican Party and it belongs to the ultra-conservative international that Donald Trump proclaims. Milei also sympathizes with this very influential group.

It took Meloni little time to stabilize his power in the Italian government. He managed to keep 2023 from derailing into inflation and stagnation. He did it at the price of tightening the screws on the economy.

Gross Domestic Product closed the year at 0.7% and inflation at 5.7%. After the very hard blows of previous years, starting from the times of the Covid pandemic, in which Europeans paid very hard like the rest of the world, it was difficult but it was possible to control inflation, which should fall to 2% in two years, assuming that economic stagnation indicates a meager +0.4% this year.

The problem of an immense debt

The most difficult problem for Italians is an immense debt which reaches the 142% of the Gross Product. But at the same time, it’s a data monster that shows no signs of slowing down.

«Meloni is increasingly controlling the situation», says Lorenzo Castellani, professor of economics at the Luiss University of Rome. “Her coalition has a large majority and remains united despite controversies. The 30% of Fratelli d’Italia have two powerful allies, but they do not overshadow them. The Northern League led by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini garners 9% and the heirs of the Forza Italia party of the late billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, which brings together the liberal conservatives, 7%.

The opposition, in turn, brings together the forces of the center-left in the Democratic Party, with 19%. Their leader is another woman, the less popular Elly Schlein. Smaller and more populist is the Five Star Movement led by former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, which has 16.3%. The others are minor parties, not very decisive.

Meloni will have to guarantee it in 2024 the flow of almost 200 billion euros will not stop or reduce decided as a priority in favor of Italy, when it was necessary to face the collapse that the Covid epidemic crisis promised on the European economy. The European Union Recovery Fund is a godsend but not one that fell from the sky and therefore with the obligation to respect the public works of the plans that are accepted.

In this regard, there is growing concern that the manna that fell from heaven from Brussels, the seat of the EU, is starting to run out due to the lack of structural reforms to which Italy has committed itself. Meloni will be the protagonist, for better or for worse, of this fundamental challenge.

There is a list of other major challenges that Italy will have to face in the coming years. One of these, the most dramatic is how to contain unauthorized immigration. Economist Francesco Giavazzi underlines that Italy above all needs “a growth strategy that is not limited to injecting money from the European Union into our economy. “If we can’t increase the growth rate, we will have problems.”