Three years later, Meloni emerges as the undisputed leader in Rome and Brussels.

RomeGiorgia Meloni explains in her autobiography—just published in the United States and promoted on social media by Donald Trump—that her political activism began in the 1990s, when corruption was devastating Italy's traditional political parties. Around the same time, a multimillionaire Milanese businessman named Silvio Berlusconi announced his entry into the political arena, ushering in nearly three decades of instability and scandal.

Meloni was then the youth leader of the National Alliance, the successor party to the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, and declared, convinced, that "Mussolini was the best Italian politician of the last 50 years." Few could have imagined then that 30 years later she would become the first wife to be Prime Minister of Italy.

Exactly three years have passed since The leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy came to power after winning the elections leading a coalition with Forza Italia, the party founded by Berlusconi, now in the hands of the also head of Italian diplomacy, Antonio Tajani; and Matteo Salvini's League.

An anniversary that the prime minister celebrated with pride, while claiming that her government is now the third longest-serving in Italian history—surpassed only by Berlusconi's—a record in a country accustomed to institutional chaos, which has accumulated more than 70 executives since 1946.

"Stability is a value that is due to continuity," she declared to the Chamber of Deputies this week. "They compare me to Gollum, but I think they haven't read The Lord of the Rings, because Gol·lum is the metaphor for someone who cannot leave power," explained the president, a well-known fan of the Tolkien saga. "I am not prepared to do what I have seen my predecessors do to maintain it," she added.

With France plunged into an unprecedented institutional crisis and Germany struggling with a recessionary economy, Italy has surprisingly become one of the most established countries in the European Union, despite its long tradition of crises, technocratic governments and tightrope-walking prime ministers.

This summer, the magazine Time, in a lengthy cover story, described the Italian prime minister as "one of the most interesting figures in Europe." "Populist and pro-Western, but committed to the Euro-Atlantic alliance," the publication declared. Shortly after, she was the Financial Times who acknowledged that "the right-wing coalition led by Meloni" had "guaranteed a rare period of political stability and calmed the markets, initially nervous about the policy of fiscal austerity."

Clashes between partners

But not all that glitters is gold. Disagreements between their governing partners have highlighted that the three parties in the coalition maintain opposing positions not only on international policy—with support for Ukraine and recognition of the Palestinian state as the main points of disagreement—but also at home.

This week, the government presented its draft budget for 2026, which introduces a "contribution" from the banking sector that they expect to raise €11 billion. This tax on banks sparked a confrontation between Salvini and Tajani, in which Meloni did not intervene.

Meloni has managed to establish herself as the leader of a three-way marriage of convenience by staying out of any dispute that could harm her. None of her vice presidents can overshadow her. Perhaps this is the secret of the success of his party, Brothers of Italy, which three years later leads the polls with levels above the 26% it obtained in the 2022 elections.

Not even the failure of his flagship project to end irregular immigration, moving to barracks built in Albania migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, seems to have influenced the consensus it still enjoys among Italians.

International leadership

After being the only woman at the Gaza summit in Egypt and sitting at the table alongside other European leaders at the White House to stop the war in Ukraine, Meloni boasts of having returned Italy to the international stage. Another point in her favor.

The lack of alternatives to the opposition and the prime minister's "diplomatic activism"—especially her rapport with US President Donald Trump—have managed to "consolidate her image as a leader" in Italy, says politician Lorenzo Pregliasco, founder of the opinion institute.

"She hasn't made any major mistakes," although at the national level, she has yet to fulfill any of the campaign promises that brought her to power. "I don't think it's a contradiction that doing little in government is accompanied by stable support; I think that's one of the reasons," the analyst concludes.