For Giorgia Meloni it was a battle on multiple fronts: three, without counting the local elections, which are another table, and the preference test, the outcome of which was predictable from the start. There is Giorgia the party leader, Giorgia the prime minister, and Giorgia the leader of the Eurogroup ECR, the Conservatives. With the margin of uncertainty due to prudent exit polls, with a very wide gap, it seems possible to say that it went well for the party leader, even better for the prime minister, while on the European front the situation is uncertain despite the massive advance of the right and perhaps indeed precisely because of that advance.
When she ran, Meloni hoped for something more but in the last part of the electoral campaign the polls and political instincts had made her fear much less. If it had fallen below the 26% achieved two years ago at the elections, the signal would have been disastrous and the prime minister would have found herself much more weakened than the figures indicated. It didn’t happen that way.
The prime minister and leader of the coalition, however, has every reason to toast. The right is stronger than two years ago. Her primacy is uncontested and indisputable: she surpasses her allies by too many lengths to not be more than armored. But there’s more and better: Fi’s statement is a point in his favor. The blue party, especially in the very moderate, decidedly neo-Christian reincarnation due to the Tajani leadership, is a precious ally. He is fishing in a segment of the electorate which, without the Azzurri, would be closed to the right. But the League has not collapsed and this is also a reason for reassurance. A League in the process of disintegration would have become unpredictable and uncontrollable, with a Salvini ready to do anything to save himself. The League binds the Northern League to the coalition and its undisputed leader. Salvini, who with these numbers has what it takes to remain at the helm of the Northern League, will continue to kick and scream. But without ever going further.
On the European front, which is far from secondary and indeed very central if one takes into account how much Meloni has dedicated herself to it since she won the elections in Italy, the horizon is less rosy. Despite the very hard blow that the voters dealt to the Social Democrats and the Liberals, the Ursula majority will have the numbers to reform without having to resort to the help of the right, that is, above all from FdI. Besieged and on the verge of being conquered, the socialists and liberals will probably hold firm in asking for the cordon sanitaire to exclude any right from the new majority. Meloni risks being left out of the majoritywhich in Europe only means the area that votes for the president of the European Commission, or to enter it surreptitiously, as an uninvited or unwelcome guest.
But the games in Europe are more complex, they pass through the decision of the European Council, the summit of heads of government responsible for indicating the presidency of the Commission, before and more than through the vote of the European Parliament, which will be called to express its opinion on the chosen candidacy by the Council. The leaders who hold the cards in the Council, Macron and Scholz, emerge from these elections in pieces and it is by no means certain that they will be able to do without the prime minister of the third largest country in the Union, the only head of government to emerge victorious from the test. In Europe, Italian Meloni therefore has many cards to play but in a game that will not be easy at all.
