Giorgia meloni

Emmanuel Macron has lost a friend in Keir Starmer. The French President paid tribute to the outgoing British Prime Minister last week, describing him as a man of ‘dignity, decency and courage’. When one door closes another one opens, and while Starmer was organising the removal vans, Macron was welcoming Giorgia Meloni to the Côte d’Azur. Last week’s Franco-Italian summit was the first of its kind since 2020; Meloni was elected prime minister two years later. For Macron, she posed a threat to European ‘values’ because her party had its roots in postwar fascism Her victory did not go down well with Macron and his centrist government.

Giorgia Meloni has suffered the first significant defeat of her three-and-a-half-year premiership. The Italians have roundly rejected her plans to reform Italy’s sclerotic judicial system – even though those plans were in the election manifesto that persuaded so many of them to vote for her. It is unlikely now that any Italian government will attempt such a reform for another generation. Italy is condemned to remain a country where the motto in every court in the peninsula – "La legge è uguale per tutti" (the law is equal for all) – is but a sick joke.

Henry Kissinger once complained: “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” Today the answer would be Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, who has emerged as the most important leader in the European Union. No Italian leader has filled this unofficial role before: it is usually reserved for the heads of the bloc’s two largest economies, Germany and France. Yet Meloni has capitalized on the weakness of their leadership. French President Emmanuel Macron may delude himself that he is Napoleon or Jupiter, but in reality he is the deeply unpopular head of a lame-duck government. To borrow a phrase from Donald Trump, he doesn’t “have the cards.” Meanwhile, Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, heads up a flimsy coalition.

There is a wind of change blowing through the West. It emanates from Washington DC, where President Donald Trump continues to dash off executive orders; more than fifty by the end of last week, the highest number in a president’s first 100 days in four decades. The liberal mainstream media is rattled. The New York Times magazine ran a piece at the weekend in which it described Trump as "the leading light of a spate of illiberal leaders and parties flourishing in democracies around the world." The paper namechecked some of them: Poland, Holland, India, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Hungary and Russia. What unites and motivates these "illiberal" parties is their opposition to what the NYT called "liberal creep," which they regard as a civilizational threat.

Over the headline “Peace Mission,” a recent cover from the conservative Hungarian periodical Mandiner shows an awkwardly photoshopped Viktor Orbán mediating between a bemused-looking Vladimir Putin and a grim Volodymyr Zelensky. Behind Orbán, a map of the world connects Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing, Washington and Budapest. One of these capitals, as they say, is not like the others. Even before Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, the chances of Orbán’s July trips to Kyiv and Moscow producing a peace settlement were slim. The Mandiner cover, however, is a revealing window into the mindset of Orbán’s conservative fans. The idea of a Hungarian prime minister mediating between squabbling great powers is both attractive and plausible to many of Orbán’s fervent supporters.

Cosenza, Italy On a dreary afternoon in May, hundreds of well-dressed Italians crowded into a regal government building in Cosenza, aptly named The Provincial Palace of the Hall of Mirrors. It was a campaign event for Fratelli D’Italia, Italy’s ruling political party. The supporters listened attentively for more than two hours. The mood was triumphant and the politicians spoke as if victory was inevitable. They spoke about a plan for when, not if, the right assumed greater power in Europe.  “This confidence is due to the fact that we, as Italy, have acquired centrality in a very important way,” said Giovanni Donzelli, the party’s national organization manager.  “This centrality is all thanks to the great work done by our leader Giorgia Meloni.