Giorgia Meloni is on a winning streak in Rome and Brussels. The referendum can end it.

When Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attended her first European leaders’ summit in Brussels in December 2022, few would have expected her to become one of the most effective politicians sitting around the table four years later.  

In fact, few would have expected that she’d still be there at all, as Italian leaders are famously short-lived. Remarkably, her right-wing Brothers of Italy party looks as rock solid in polls as it did four years ago, and she now has her eye on the record longest term for an Italian premier — a feat she is due to accomplish in September.

A loss in what is set to be a nail-biting referendum on the bitter and complex issue of judicial reform on March 22 and 23 would be her first major set back — and would puncture the air of political invincibility that she exudes not only in Rome but also in Brussels.

Meloni has thrived on the European stage, and has become adept at using the EU machinery to her advantage. Only in recent months, she has made decisive interventions on the EU’s biggest dossiers, such as Russian assets, the Mercosur trade deal and carbon markets, leveraging Italy’s heavyweight status to win concessions in areas like farm subsidies.

Profiting from France’s weakness, Meloni is also establishing a strong partnership with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — a double act between the EU’s No. 1 and No. 3 economies — to mold the bloc’s policies to favor manufacturing and free trade.

Crashing down to earth

For a few more days, at least, Meloni looks like a uniquely stable and influential Italian leader.

Nicola Procaccini, a Brothers of Italy MEP very close to Meloni and co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, called the government’s longevity a “real novelty” in the European political landscape.

“Until recently, Italy couldn’t insert itself into the dynamics of those that shape the European Union — essentially the Franco-German axis — because it lacked governments capable of lasting even a year,” said the MEP. “Giorgia Meloni is not just a leader who endures; she is a leader who shapes decisions and influences the direction to be taken.”

But critics of the prime minister said a failure in the referendum would mark a critical turning point. Her rivals would finally detect a chink in her armor and move to attack her record, particularly on economic weaknesses at home. The unexpected, new message to other EU leaders would be clear: She won’t be here for ever.

Brando Benifei, an MEP in Italy’s center-left opposition Democratic Party, conceded that other EU leaders saw her as the leader of a “ultra-stable government.” But, if she were to lose the referendum, he argued “she would inevitably lose that aura.”

“Everyone remembers how it ended for Renzi’s coalition after he lost his referendum,” Benifei added, in reference to former Democratic Party Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who resigned after his own failed referendum in 2016.

Machiavellian Meloni

Meloni owes much of her success on the EU stage to canny opportunism. At the beginning of the year, she slyly spotted an opportunity — suddenly wavering on the Mercosur trade deal, which Rome has long supported — to win extra cash for farmers that would please her powerful farm unions at home. She held off from actually killing the agreement, something that would have lost her friends among other capitals.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a signing ceremony during an Italy-Germany Intergovernmental Summit in Rome on Jan. 23, 2026. | Pool photo by Michael Kappeler/AFP via Getty Images

The Italian leader “knows how to read the room very well,” said one European diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss European Council dynamics.  

Teresa Coratella, deputy head of the Rome office at the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, said Meloni had  “a political cunning” that allowed her to build “variable geometries,” allying with different European leaders by turn based on the subject under discussion.

One of her first victories came on migration in 2023. She was able to elevate the issue to the top level of the European Council, and even managed to secure a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Tunisia, eventually resulting in the signing of a pact on the issue.

Others wins followed. 

Last December, with impeccable timing, Meloni unexpectedly threw her lot in with Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever at the last minute, scuppering a plan to fund Ukraine’s defenses with Russian frozen assets, instead pushing for more EU joint debt.

Italian diplomats said that Meloni is a careful student, showing up to summits always having read the relevant documents, and having asking the apposite questions. That wasn’t always the case with former Italian prime ministers. 

They said her choice of functionaries — rewarding competence over and above political affiliation — also helps. These include her chief diplomatic consigliere Fabrizio Saggio and Vincenzo Celeste, ambassador to the EU. Neither is considered close politically to Meloni.  

Her biggest coup, though, has been shunting aside France as Germany’s main European partner on key files, with her partnership with Merz even being dubbed “Merzoni.”

Rolling the dice

Meloni’s strength partly explains why she dared call the referendum.

Italy’s right has for decades complained that the judiciary is biased to the left. It’s a feud that goes back to the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption drive in the 1990s that pulverized the political elite of that time, and the constant court cases against playboy premier and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, father of the modern center-right.

The proposal in the plebiscite is to restructure the judiciary. But it’s a high-stakes gamble, and why she called it seems something of a puzzle. The reforms themselves are highly technical — and by the government’s own admission won’t actually speed up Italy’s notoriously long court cases.   

Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni attends the European Council meeting on June 26, 2025 in Brussels. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images

Instead, the vote has turned into a more general vote of confidence in Meloni and her government. The timing is tough as Italians widely dislike her ally U.S. President Donald Trump and fear the war in Iran will drive up their already high power prices.

Still, she is determined not to suffer Renzi’s fate and insists she will not step down even if she loses the referendum. 

Asked at a conference on Thursday whether a loss would make Rome appear less stable in its dealings with other European capitals, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was adamant that the referendum has “absolutely nothing to do with the stability of the government.”

“This government will last until the day of the next national elections,” he added.

A victory on Monday will put the wind in her sails before the next general elections, which have to be held by the end of 2027. It would also set the stage for other reforms that Meloni wants to enact: a move to a more presidential system, with a direct election of the prime minister, making the role more like the French presidency. 

But a loss would galvanize the opposition — split between the populist 5Star Movement, and the traditional center-left Democratic Party.

The danger is her rivals would round on her particularly over the economy. Even counting for the fact Italy has benefitted from the largest tranche of the Covid-era recovery package — growth has been sluggish, consistently below 1 percent, falling to 0.5 percent in 2025. 

“We have a situation in which the country is increasingly heading toward stagnation and we have to ask ourselves what would have happened if we had not had the boost of the Recovery Fund,” said Enrico Borghi, a senator from Italia Viva, Renzi’s party.

Procaccini, however, defended her, both on employment and growth.

“It could be better,” he conceded. “But we are still talking about growth, unlike countries that in this historical phase are recording a decline, as in the case of Germany.”