Meloni celebrates record tenure: “Italy is being taken seriously again”

Giorgia Meloni used a party event in Bari to celebrate what she presented as the defining achievement of her government: staying in power longer than any Italian administration since Silvio Berlusconi’s second government. Her cabinet has now reached 1,413 days in office, and the prime minister said the milestone showed that Italy had regained weight and respect internationally.

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Today, when Italy sits at the table, everyone knows that this interlocutor will have to be reckoned with for a long time.

“Today, when Italy sits at the table, everyone knows that this interlocutor will have to be reckoned with for a long time,” Meloni told supporters of Brothers of Italy. She said the government’s stability had become a shield for the country, allowing Italy to reject decisions, shape them and set its own direction instead of simply adapting.

The prime minister turned the event into a broader attack on the Italian left and its international allies, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Referring to immigration and cultural issues, she questioned whether the opposition would abandon political correctness, “woke” positions and what she called gender ideology. She also criticized what she described as the “Sánchez model” after the situation in Ceuta.

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Stability has been a shield thanks to which our country is once again taken very seriously. You can afford to say no, determine decisions instead of suffering them, and indicate the route instead of adapting.

Meloni claimed that ideas once labeled extremist had moved into European policy. She pointed to measures allowing return centers in non-EU countries, following Italy’s model in Albania, and said irregular arrivals had fallen 83% in 2026 compared with 2023. She acknowledged that the issue was not resolved, but argued that her government now had tools that did not exist before.

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This is what it means to make the right count: not to raise your voice further, but to bring everyone to your position without changing it by a comma.

She also defended her trade policy and protections for agriculture, particularly amid the European Union’s agreement with Mercosur. Meloni called for reciprocal standards for imported products. Her record-setting term now heads toward the 2027 elections, which have not yet been given an official date and are expected to be complicated by the emergence of former military officer and European lawmaker Roberto Vannacci’s new far-right movement.

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There is much to do, but today we have tools that did not exist yesterday. The stage is beginning in which those tools can be applied and produce results.