It should be fast – but so fast? After days of confusion in the Italian legal camp, Giorgia Meloni received the order from President Sergio Mattarella on Friday to form a new cabinet. And since the head of the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia is in a hurry, she presented herself with the list of ministers at the meeting in Rome’s Quirinal Palace. She herself stands there as “Presidente del Consiglio”. Meloni will be Italy’s first woman prime minister. The premiere led some media to call her “Presidentessa”.
It also happened quickly because the right-wing delegation had only needed about ten minutes to express their support for Meloni to the President. Only Meloni spoke in front of the press, for just under a minute, so much speed was really rare. She wants to give “this nation” a new government, she said. “We are ready.” Her two main partners in the alliance, Silvio Berlusconi of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of the Lega, stood by her without a word. As you can hear, that was a requirement of the new strong woman in Italian politics. Berlusconi, who had caused a lot of unrest in the past few days with unfriendly notes about Meloni and disturbing statements about Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, sometimes smiled patronizingly at everyone, but actually held back.
Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia will sit in the new government as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Meloni stuck by him, even though he is number two in his party and a close associate of Berlusconi. However, there is no doubt about his expertise and his commitment to Europe: the 69-year-old Roman was a member of the European Parliament for many years and was also a European Commissioner twice. Meloni chose Tajani because he acts as a sort of corrective in what is currently their most difficult partner party.
Salvini, Italy’s new transport minister, will also become deputy prime minister. He would have preferred to become interior minister, but has to leave the post to the Roman prefect Matteo Piantedosi, who used to be his head of cabinet. Economy and finance minister is Giancarlo Giorgetti of the Lega, a “Draghian”. Meloni would have preferred a prominent, non-partisan technocrat, but everyone who was asked declined. Francesco Lollobrigida, Meloni’s brother-in-law, becomes Minister of Agriculture. The 24 ministers will take their oath on Saturday morning at ten o’clock. Only six of them are women, apart from Meloni.
After his most recent lapses, his wishes no longer counted: Silvio Berlusconi after the meeting with Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella on Friday.
(Photo: Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse/Zuma/ Press/dpa)
The confidence votes in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are then planned for Tuesday and Wednesday. Italy is a parliamentary democracy. A new government is only in office and responsible if it has received the trust of both chambers. After her victory in the general elections on September 25, the rights of this prospect should be quite certain. In the Senate, however, their majority is narrow, just 11 votes, and some senators are now becoming ministers. A residual risk remains for Meloni, especially since not all parties are equally satisfied with the distribution of the ministries.
The great uncertainty: Berlusconi feels humiliated. Does he stay in line?
The biggest element of uncertainty is Forza Italia. Berlusconi finds it hard to bear that he is no longer officially the patron of the camp that he founded himself in 1994 when he entered politics. What’s more, Giorgia Meloni, whom he had always treated like a political lightweight, now unequivocally assigned him his new, severely trimmed role during the preliminary negotiations on the government: she refused to accept his exaggerated demands. She was not open to blackmail, she had it aligned. People who know Berlusconi well have reported in the media that he saw Meloni’s cold shoulder as a disgrace and wanted revenge. For a while, it looked as if the right might fail because of its internal animosities.
All in all, however, Meloni has probably benefited from Berlusconi’s recent outbursts, above all from those about his apparently restored friendship with Putin and the contempt for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In doing so, he weakened himself. Suddenly, Meloni stood on the right as the sole guarantor of loyalty to Italy’s Euro-Atlantic line. She now also felt free to complete the list of ministers almost at will. All of Berlusconi’s wishes were extinguished almost automatically.
Forza Italia is torn into two camps: one close to Meloni, the other she doesn’t like that much. So the new prime minister cannot be sure of the unanimity of her partners, not in the long run.