{"id":137482,"date":"2025-10-22T03:55:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/137482\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T03:55:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:55:16","slug":"enough-globe-trotting-giorgia-meloni-needs-to-focus-on-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/137482\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough globe-trotting, Giorgia Meloni needs to focus on the economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gaza summit in Egypt last week drew a galaxy of world leaders, brokered peace in Gaza and, almost inevitably, had a Giorgia Meloni moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not allowed to say it \u2014 because usually it\u2019s the end of your political career if you say it \u2014 she\u2019s a beautiful young woman,\u201d President Trump announced as he sought out the prime minister in the line-up. \u201cBut I\u2019ll take my chances. Where is she? There she is. You don\u2019t mind being called beautiful right? Because you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a feat of diplomatic facial language, Meloni<\/a> managed to smile broadly as Trump turned to her without actually nodding agreement, before reverting to her fiercest power stare nine seconds later when he turned away. <\/p>\n

Meloni deftly dealt with the cringey comment, showing her experience of summits as she approached three years in government on October 22, which amounted to decades in politician years.<\/p>\n

The date coincides with strong poll ratings at home and a thumbs up for the Italian economy from credit rating agencies, as its neighbour France has gone full Italian, with governments collapsing on an almost daily basis. <\/p>\n

\u201cItaly is a country that can astound in an extraordinary way,\u201d Meloni<\/a> said this month as she started to focus on winning a second term at the next general election, which must be held by 2027.<\/p>\n

September 4 next year marks when the country\u2019s first female prime minister will have led its longest-lasting government, beating the record set by the late Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s 2001\u201305 government.<\/p>\n

\"Silvio<\/p>\n

Silvio Berlusconi and Meloni in 2022<\/p>\n

CARLO HERMANN\/DEFODI IMAGES\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is an inspiration to all,\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, promoting Meloni\u2019s autobiography, which boasts an introduction by his son Donald Trump Jr. High praise for a leader whose election as a relative unknown in 2022 prompted hand wringing over the fascist roots of her Brothers of Italy party and cast a spotlight on the keenness of some of her MPs for Benito Mussolini<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/p>\n

Since then she has left most of the right-wing demagoguery to her coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, and his sidekick, Roberto Vannacci, an ex-special forces general who claims homosexuals are \u201cnot normal\u201d and black people cannot be truly Italian. <\/p>\n

\"Roberto<\/p>\n

Roberto Vannacci and Matteo Salvini<\/p>\n

ANTONIO MASIELLO\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

But Meloni would not be Meloni without a bit of yelling, the commentator Beppe Severgnini said. \u201cThere are two Giorgia Melonis,\u201d he said. \u201cOne is the tough rabble rouser who shouts, who attacks migration and calls pro-Palestine marchers Hamas. That gets her 25 to 28 per cent of the vote. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen there is the second Meloni, who looks moderate in Egypt<\/a> besides [Israel\u2019s prime minister, Binyamin] Netanyahu, [Turkey\u2019s President] Erdogan and Trump, let alone Salvini and Vannacci, who are trying to be [Hungary\u2019s President] Orban. That gets her another 10 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Matteo<\/p>\n

With Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi at a campaign rally in 2022<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n

\u2022 What Erdogan\u2019s smoking jibe at Meloni says about his power moves<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

In Europe Meloni\u2019s reputation as the hard-right politician you can do business with is based on her early decision to back Ukraine to the hilt, unlike the Orbans and Le Pens, who have the whiff of Russophilia about them. <\/p>\n

In Italy<\/a>, where politicians are judged as much on who they are as what they do, Meloni\u2019s appeal is anchored to her forthright character. \u201cIt\u2019s thanks to that she broke the tradition of Italian voters getting bored with politicians after about 18 months,\u201d a senior member of Meloni\u2019s team said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe like her a lot,\u201d a retired bank employee, Antonio Gullotto, 83, said as he sat with his wife on a bench in a Rome piazza. \u201cShe is serious, she does what she says she will do and she is liked around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meloni\u2019s continuing appeal is helped by the never-ending squabbling between her two opposition rivals, the Democratic Party leader, Elly Schlein, and the Five Star leader and former prime minister, Giuseppe Conte. \u201cThe Italian right is often divided but comes together at crucial moments, while left-wing politicians have a lot in common with each other but have a habit of dividing at crucial moments,\u201d Severgnini said. <\/p>\n

Meloni benefits from positive coverage on the politicised state TV network, a real boon in a country where many ageing voters keep the television on all day.<\/p>\n

\"Italian<\/p>\n

Appearing on the television show Cinque Minuti this month<\/p>\n

ANTONIO MASIELLO\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

During a long televised interview this month, Meloni did, however, trip up when asked why Italians did not feel well off, despite her talk of thousands of jobs created on her watch. She first blamed previous governments and then the European Union before promising that salaries were rising, not much comfort to daily shoppers who had seen fruit priced at two euros a kilo in street markets a couple of years ago soar to four euros and pasta dishes in Rome trattorias rise from ten euros to about 13 euros.<\/p>\n

Meloni will need better answers next year as attention turns to the economy from world events in the run-up to the election. Employment is up and prudent spending has kept the budget deficit down but GDP growth is anaemic and wages dropped by 4.4 per cent between 2019 and last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cItaly is the only EU member where real wages did not recover after Covid and the Ukraine energy shock,\u201d said Carlo Altomonte, an economics professor at Bocconi University in Milan. \u201cLow wages are why firms are hiring, substituting machinery with workers, but they are not investing in technology, which means they risk struggling to compete globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luciano Monti at Luiss University in Rome warned that Italy\u2019s legions of small companies were not funding enough research and development, further weakening their ability to compete. \u201cThis problem predates Meloni but she has to tackle it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The economy is meanwhile getting a bonus 0.8 per cent in GDP growth thanks to the injection of 194 billion euros in post-Covid grants and loans from the EU, Altomonte said. \u201cThere would be no GDP growth without that money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meloni has not made a big deal out of the crucial funds, possibly because they are an EU initiative, which does not gel with her nationalist narrative. In her recent TV interview she did not mention them once. The economy will, however, feel the hit when the funds run out next year. <\/p>\n

Altomonte offered Meloni two bits of advice. \u201cThe silver bullet for the Italian economy after that is training the workforce,\u201d he said. \u201cItalian firms train just 9 per cent of their staff on the job compared with the EU average of 30 per cent,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing to do is cut energy costs. Meloni needs to impose the EU\u2019s already agreed price cap and floor system on Italian energy companies. These companies will fight it, but at least she can blame the EU,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gaza summit in Egypt last week drew a galaxy of world leaders, brokered peace in Gaza and,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,179,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-137482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}