Italy’s prime minister used a Lower House briefing on Thursday to reassert her authority after a bruising referendum defeat, rule out any further cabinet reshuffles, and set out her government’s agenda for its final year.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told the Lower House in her Thursday briefing that there would be no further resignations or reshuffles, and that her government would run its full five years until September next year.
The address came at a significant moment. Meloni’s government has just weathered its most serious setback: a decisive defeat in a referendum on judicial reform that triggered a wave of departures from the executive. The parliamentary briefing was, in part, a demonstration that the coalition had absorbed those blows and remained standing.
“Let it be known that the government is here, fully functioning, determined to do its best, even better, until the last day of its mandate,” Meloni told MPs. “We won’t run away, we won’t retreat, we won’t take cover by making citizens pay for the usual palace tricks: we will govern as serious people do, at peace with their conscience.”
She acknowledged that the departures had not been straightforward; that she had asked officials to step down even when they had “worked well” but framed each as a sacrifice made in the national interest rather than a concession to pressure. “The majority is solid and cohesive,” she said. She expressed pride in both deputy prime ministers, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini.
Justice reform: Defeated but not abandoned
The referendum rejection of her flagship judicial overhaul might have led another leader to quietly drop the issue. Meloni was explicit that she would not. The reform was, she insisted, responding to real problems that had not gone away simply because voters had rejected her government’s proposed solution.
“My hope is that the work on this reform will not be abandoned, as some probably hope, because the problems remain, and we have a duty to find concrete, courageous and effective solutions — ideally in a climate of collaboration, certainly not against the judiciary, but in favour of a judiciary free from political and ideological constraints,” she said. Critics of the original reform had argued that rather than addressing the notorious sluggishness of Italy’s courts, it risked opening the door to greater government influence over the justice system. Meloni’s revised approach, she suggested, would seek consensus where the previous attempt had sought confrontation.
Iran, Hormuz and the European safety net
The Iran war dominated the international portion of Meloni’s briefing, and produced some of her sharpest exchanges with the opposition.
She pushed back firmly against claims that Italy’s posture had been one of subservience to Donald Trump. “Italy’s international positioning wasn’t invented by this government, but has remained the same for about 80 years,” she said. Meloni added pointedly that she would not accept the “clichéd refrain” about her alleged subservience to Trump or the equally tired suggestion that she should choose between Washington and Brussels. In a wry aside, she borrowed the language of centre-left opposition leader Elly Schlein. “I would say, borrowing a phrase dear to Elly Schlein, that we are stubbornly united. We are stubbornly Western, because only if the West is united can it be a force capable of expressing its voice on the world stage.”
On the Strait of Hormuz Meloni was notably cautious. She warned that any Iranian right to impose tariffs on shipping passing through the strait could trigger consequences that would be difficult to predict or contain. “Full restoration of freedom of movement in the Strait of Hormuz is needed, and it must not be subject to any restrictions,” she said. “If Iran were to obtain the right to apply extra duties on transit through the Strait, this could still lead to unpredictable economic consequences.” The issue is of direct relevance to Italy, a major importer of Middle Eastern energy.
On a broader level, she raised the prospect of a suspension of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact if the crisis were to escalate further. She also pledged domestic action: Italy stood ready, she said, to intervene on energy company profits if evidence emerged of speculative pricing behaviour.
Organised crime and the government
In one of the more politically charged passages of the address, Meloni took aim at opposition attempts to link her party with organised crime. It was triggered by two incidents: a photograph of her with a Camorra informant at a public event she attended, and the resignation of justice undersecretary Andrea Delmastro after connections emerged between a Rome restaurant he was associated with and a woman linked to a Camorra frontman.
Meloni dismissed the attacks as “desperate mud-slinging” and responded with a challenge of her own. She would go further than her critics, she said, by formally calling on the parliamentary anti-mafia commission to investigate organised crime infiltration of all political parties, including her own Brothers of Italy. “I don’t accept that my sacrifices can be used for the interests of those I’ve been fighting since 19 July 1992,” she said — the date a Mafia car bomb killed anti-Mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino in Palermo. Meloni has repeatedly cited this event as the moment she resolved to enter public life.
Rounding out a wide-ranging briefing, Meloni also announced plans to hire 10,000 auxiliary police and Carabinieri to strengthen public safety. Furthermore, she confirmed that a government housing programme would target the delivery of 100,000 homes over the next decade.
