The major countries of Europe (and even Japan and Canada) have been experiencing much political instability, including election results that have lacked clarity. France had four prime ministers in 2024, one of whom lasted only 91 days, and snap elections last summer brought diminished power to the ruling majority. The United Kingdom held elections in July 2024 that resulted in a loss for the ruling Conservatives—who had five prime ministers in five years. But the victorious Labour party of Prime Minister Keir Starmer quickly lost its luster after the government increased taxes and suffered a sharp decline in the polls.

German snap elections on February 23 this year put an end to the country’s tripartite “traffic light” government of Socialists, Greens, and Free Democrats, an incongruous ideological coalition. The most likely new coalition (as of this writing talks are still being held) would start with a built-in weakness: a government made up of top-scoring Christian Democrats aligned with the Socialists—the party that was the biggest election loser—while excluding (and isolating) the far-right Alliance for Germany (AfD,) the party that came in second, having nearly doubled its vote since the 2021 election.

The Italian government reaches its mandate midpoint

Interestingly, the European country with the most short-lived governments since World War II, namely Italy, is today an oasis of political stability.* On March 25, 2025, the tripartite government of Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, will mark the halfway point of its five-year legislative mandate, something most previous governments never achieved.

Meloni’s coalition government consists of her own party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy—a name taken from the first line of the Italian national anthem); Forza Italia, the party headed by Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani (a former president of the European Parliament and successor to party founder Silvio Berlusconi who died in June 2023); and the Lega (League), headed by former Minister of Internal Affairs Matteo Salvini, who is also Vice Premier. All three parties espouse a center right ideology, which allows for greater unity. The composition and cohesion of the coalition, the forceful and fearless leadership of the Prime Minister, and the policies the government has chosen to pursue seem to account for its longevity.**

Meloni’s success story

As political polls indicate, the Italian electorate seems to appreciate the government’s leadership, which has seen Italy’s return to economic growth along with a sharp reduction in inflation as well as a record low unemployment rate. In 2024, Italy’s real GDP advanced 0.7 percent while that of Germany contracted 0.2 percent. Consumer prices rose only 1.4 percent versus 2.8 percent in Germany and well below the Euro Area average of 2.4 percent. The Italian unemployment rate of 6.4 percent in December 2024 reached a record low compared with over 10 percent during the height of the pandemic. The budget deficit has been reined in and the debt to GDP ratio has stabilized and is close to that of the United States. Italian industry benefitted from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan funds granted by the European Union to help recovery from Covid by encouraging investments especially in new industries.

Moreover, Italy’s merchandise exports have expanded so sharply that in 2023 it became the world’s sixth largest exporter, up from ninth place in 2019. About 10 percent of Italy’s exports go to the United States and Italy has a large trade surplus—$44 billion in 2024—that is now threatened with possible punitive tariffs from the Trump Administration.

It is well to remember the values Meloni campaigned on. As I wrote in an earlier piece, she “identifies openly as Christian, Italian, a woman, and a mother. She is pro-family, explicitly against abortion, euthanasia, gender ideology, same-sex marriage, cancel culture and wokeism.”** In the social sphere the Meloni government has succeeded in banning all forms of surrogacy while introducing a natality plan with incentives encouraging couples to have more children to arrest the low birth rate, which fell to 1.2 births per woman in 2023. Greater vigilance has resulted in a major reduction in the inflow of illegal migrants coming across the Mediterranean, mostly from North Africa, a long running problem that can be compared with the massive influx into the United States over the Mexican border under the Biden Administration.

In February, Prime Minister Meloni addressed the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in Maryland where she described her own government as conservative. She endorsed remarks Vice President J.D. Vance made at the Munich Security Council meeting denouncing the woke elite that is eroding freedom in some parts of Europe. She reiterated her support for Ukraine, the United States, the alliance of Western nations, and the need for Europe to step up defense spending. Some other points she touched on were that “life is sacred” and “we defend family life,” and in the political sphere, “freedom comes before everything else.”

As is often the case in Italy, the opposition left-wing parties seem to exist solely to overthrow the government in power by exploiting every minor issue for whatever mileage they can muster. There is no concept of “loyal opposition” in Italy. Thus, there is no certainty that the Meloni government will finish the second half of its term. However, Meloni continues to score well in political polls while the opposition parties led by the Democratic party are currently in disarray over numerous issues.

The day that Giorgia Meloni was sworn in, October 22 (2022), was the feast day of St. John Paul II. Later that day she wrote on social media how glad she was to have started her mandate on that date and recalled the privilege she felt in having met the saintly Pope—who may well have provided a spiritual guiding light to her political longevity.

*Italy has had over 60 governments in the postwar period. Only one survived its full legislative mandate: that headed by Silvio Berlusconi from 2001-2006.

**See “Italy Returns to Political Normalcy,” www.humanlifereview.com, October 28, 2022.