Giorgia Meloni facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Giorgia Meloni
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Official portrait, 2023
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| Prime Minister of Italy | |
| Assumed office 22 October 2022 |
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| President | Sergio Mattarella |
| Deputy | |
| Preceded by | Mario Draghi |
| President of Brothers of Italy | |
| Assumed office 8 March 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Ignazio La Russa |
| President of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party | |
| Assumed office 29 September 2020 |
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| Preceded by | Jan Zahradil |
| Minister of Youth | |
| In office 8 May 2008 – 16 November 2011 |
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| Prime Minister | Silvio Berlusconi |
| Preceded by | Giovanna Melandri |
| Succeeded by | Andrea Riccardi |
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
| Assumed office 28 April 2006 |
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| Constituency |
See list
Lazio 1 (2006–2008)
Lazio 2 (2008–2013) Lombardy 3 (2013–2018) Latina (2018–2022) L'Aquila (since 2022) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 January 1977 Rome, Italy |
| Political party | FdI (since 2012) |
| Other political affiliations |
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| Domestic partner | Andrea Giambruno (2015–2023) |
| Children | 1 |
| Signature |  |
Giorgia Meloni (Italian: [ˈdʒordʒa meˈloːni]; born 15 January 1977) is an Italian politician who has been serving as the prime minister of Italy since October 2022, the first woman to hold this position. In 2024 she was listed among the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
Contents
Early life
Giorgia Meloni was born in Rome on 15 January 1977. Her father was from Sardinia and her mother is from Sicily. Her father, a tax advisor, left the family when she was one year old in 1978, by moving to the Canary Islands; 17 years later, he was sentenced to 9 years in a Spanish prison in 1995. He last contacted Meloni in 2006, when she became the Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies. She grew up in the working-class district of Garbatella. She has a sister, Arianna, who was born in 1975 and is married to Francesco Lollobrigida, the Italian Minister of Agriculture since 22 October 2022, which was renamed the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignity under the Meloni Cabinet.
In 1992, at 15 years of age, Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party that dissolved in 1995. During this time, she founded the student coordination Gli Antenati (The Ancestors), which took part in the protest against the public education reform promoted by minister Rosa Russo Iervolino. In 1996, she became the national leader of Student Action, the student movement of the post-fascist National Alliance (AN), the national-conservative heir of the MSI, representing this movement in the Student Associations Forum established by the Italian Ministry of Education.
In 1998, after winning the primary election, Meloni was elected as a councillor of the Province of Rome, holding this position until 2002. She was elected national director in 2000 and became the first woman president of Youth Action, the AN youth wing, in 2004. During these years, she worked as a nanny, waitress, and bartender at the Piper Club, one of the most famous night clubs in Rome.
Meloni graduated from Rome's Amerigo Vespucci Institute (AVI) in 1996. After her election to the Italian Parliament in 2006, she declared in her curriculum vitae that she obtained a high school diploma in languages with the final mark of 60/60. This created some controversy, as the AVI was not a foreign language high school and was not qualified to issue a diploma in languages; instead, it was a technical high school specialized in the tourist industry, to which she later clarified.
Political career
In 1992, Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by followers of Italian fascism. She later became the national leader of Student Action, the student movement of the National Alliance (AN), a post-fascist party that became the MSI's legal successor in 1995. She was a councillor of the province of Rome from 1998 to 2002, after which she became the president of Youth Action, the youth wing of AN. In 2008 she was appointed Italian Minister of Youth in the fourth Berlusconi government, a role which she held until 2011. In 2012 she co-founded FdI, a legal successor to AN, and became its president in 2014. She unsuccessfully ran in the 2014 European Parliament election and the 2016 Rome municipal election. After the 2018 Italian general election, she led FdI in opposition during the entire 18th Italian legislature. FdI grew its popularity in opinion polls, particularly during the management of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Draghi Cabinet, a national unity government to which FdI was the only opposition party. Following the fall of the Draghi government, FdI won the 2022 Italian general election.
Prime Minister of Italy
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Meloni was officially sworn in on 22 October 2022. She is the first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister of Italy.
On 25 October, Meloni gave her first official speech as Prime Minister in front of the Chamber of Deputies, before the confidence vote on her cabinet. During her speech, she stressed the weight of being the first woman to serve as head of the Italian government. She thanked several Italian women including Tina Anselmi, Samantha Cristoforetti, Grazia Deledda, Oriana Fallaci, Nilde Iotti, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and Maria Montessori, who she said, "with the boards of their own examples, built the ladder that today allows me to climb and break the heavy glass ceiling placed over our heads". The government won the confidence vote with a comfortable majority in both houses.
Domestic policies
One of the first measures implemented by the government regarded COVID-19 and concerned with the complete removal of the COVID-19 vaccination certificate, known in Italy as the Green Pass; moreover, non-vaccinated doctors were re-integrated into service. By this time, the government’s workforce vaccination mandate had been in place for over one year, rendering the edict largely symbolic. On 31 October, the government approved a decree providing for a penalty of up to six years of imprisonment for illegal parties and rallies. Despite being officially presented as a decree against illegal rave parties, the law was applicable to any illegal gathering that the public authority deemed dangerous, which garnered criticism, including from jurist Vitalba Azzolini. The decree also caused a lot of protests from opposition parties and civil rights associations, and was also contested by FI. According to Amnesty International, the decree "risked undermining the right to peaceful protest." The Meloni government has rejected the accusations and announced that it will accept minor changes to the text in Parliament. In the first weeks after taking office, Meloni implemented stricter policies than previous governments regarding the fight against illegal immigration.
From an economic point of view, Meloni and her government have decided to prevent the increase in energy prices, in continuity with her predecessor Mario Draghi, by lowering prices, giving subsidies to families and businesses and making new drilling decisions in the Italian seas to increase national gas production. The government decided also to increase the cash ceiling from €2,000 to €5,000.
In late December 2022, Meloni announced that Elisabetta Casellati, Minister for Constitutional Reforms, would meet with the opposition parties to officially begin the roadmap towards a presidential system.
In May 2023, the government had to face severe floods which affected Emilia-Romagna region, killing 17 people and displacing 50,000 others. The provisional cost of the damage caused by the floods amounts to more than €10 billion (US$11 billion). On 23 May, Italy's Council of Ministers officially announced the approval of the first law decree in response to the emergency, an estimated €2 billion recovery package that was aimed to public and private businesses, schools, universities, museums and farm workers, among other categories. On 25 May, Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, visited the flooded areas along with Bonaccini. Meloni underlined the strong spirit of the Romagnol people, stating: "Usually, when you lose everything, the prevailing feeling is anger, blame-seeking, or resignation. In Emilia-Romagna I found people shoveling mud with pride in their eyes, saying: all right, we have a problem, but we will solve it, we will rebuild." After weeks of tension within the government and between majority and opposition parties, on 27 June 2023 the Meloni cabinet officially appointed army corps general Francesco Paolo Figliuolo as Extraordinary Commissioner for the Reconstruction.
Foreign policy
The first foreign leader met by Meloni was the French president Emmanuel Macron, who was in Rome on 23 October to meet President Mattarella and the Pope, and had a bilateral meeting with Meloni, primarily focused on the ongoing energy crisis. On 3 November, Meloni met European Union (EU) leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Paolo Gentiloni, Roberta Metsola, and other politicians in Brussels.
On 7 November, Meloni took part in her first international summit, the United Nations COP27 in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt. During her speech, Meloni stated: "Italy remains strongly convinced of its commitment to decarbonisation in compliance with the Paris Agreement. We must diversify energy suppliers, in close collaboration with African countries." During the conference, the prime minister also had a bilateral meeting with the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In the following week, Meloni participated in the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, where she had her first bilateral meeting with the U.S. President Joe Biden on 15 November.
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In January 2023, Meloni visited Algeria, where she met president Abdelmadjid Tebboune with whom she signed a deal regarding gas supply to Italy. Thanks to this deal, Algeria will become Italy's largest gas supplier.
On 2 March 2023, Meloni visited India, where she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Droupadi Murmu. During a press conference, Meloni praised Modi and his policies, describing him as the "most loved leader in the world". In March 2023, she hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Rome.
In April 2023, Meloni had a state visit in Ethiopia, where she met Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. In Addis Ababa, Meloni announced the so-called "Mattei Plan" by the Italian government regarding investments in the African continent. Meloni was the first Western head of state to visit Ethiopia since the end of the Tigray War. During the visit, she also had a bilateral meeting with the chair of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki. In May 2023, Meloni attended the 49th G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. On 16 July, Prime Minister Meloni, along with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, travelled to Tunis in order to sign an agreement with President Kais Saied regarding the strengthening of the economic partnership between Europe and Tunisia, the European diplomatic support for the disbursement of the loan from IMF and, especially, the fight against irregular migration flows. She considered withdrawing from China's Belt and Road Initiative.
In July 2023, she had a state trip to the United States. On 27 July, Meloni visited the U.S. Capitol where she met with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Later she met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House, where they discussed about many issues, including Ukraine, China and Africa. They also talked about the strengthening of economic exchange between the two countries, trade relations between Europe and U.S., security policies and the forthcoming G7 Italian presidency.
On 28 April 2024, Meloni announced that she would run for a seat in the European Parliament in elections due to be held in June. In the election, her party remained the most voted in the country with 28.8% of votes, and Meloni became the most voted candidate in the election.
Political positions
Observers have described Meloni's political positions as far right; in August 2018, Friedel Taube wrote in Deutsche Welle that "Giorgia Meloni has a long history in far-right politics." In a July 2022 interview with Nicholas Farrell of The Spectator, Meloni rejected descriptions of her politics as far right, calling it a smear campaign by her opponents. She has described herself as a mainstream conservative. Additionally, Meloni has been described as hard right, right-wing populist, and nationalist.
Meloni has been described as being close to Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary and leader of Fidesz, National Rally in France, and Vox political party in Spain, representatives of the Law and Justice party in Poland, and the Republican Party in the United States. Meloni self-described her political party, Brothers of Italy (FdI), as a mainstream conservative party, and she has downplayed its post-fascist roots. She is in favour of presidentialism and supports the change of the Constitution of Italy.
Social issues
Meloni opposes laws that recognize same-sex marriage, and describes herself as "pro-family". She also stated that the recognition of same-sex unions in Italy is good enough, and she said it was something she would not change; in 2016, while she said she would respect the law if elected mayor of Rome, she had supported a referendum to abrogate the civil-union law. At a rally at the Piazza del Popolo in October 2019, she spoke against same-sex parenting; her speech became viral on Italian social media platforms.
Feminism
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She sees feminism as an ideological tool against right-wing politics rather than in pro-women terms and has described herself as "a person for women".
The likely possibility of Meloni being the first woman to become Prime Minister of Italy has been widely discussed both prior to and after the 2022 Italian general election. Some women did not see this as a victory due to her political positions, while others saw it at least partly in a positive light.
Immigration and multiculturalism
Meloni has criticized Italy's approach towards illegal immigrants, calling for a zero-tolerance policy, and she wants to blockade migrants from reaching Italian ports, and boost the birth rate of Italian nationals to ease the need for migrant labour. She is opposed to birthright citizenship proposals, which would give citizenship including education rights to immigrants born and living in Italy. She has linked illegal immigration and refugee arrivals to crime.
Personal life
From 2015 until 2023, Meloni had a domestic partner, Andrea Giambruno, a journalist who works for Mediaset TV channels. The couple has a daughter, Ginevra, born in 2016. On 20 October 2023, Meloni announced the end of her relation with Giambruno.
She is a Roman Catholic and has used her religious identity in part to help build her national brand.
In September 2022, she reportedly continued to embrace the old Italian fascist slogan "God, fatherland and family". She has said she resents being linked to Italy's fascist past.
Meloni is an avid fan of fantasy, particularly J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. As a youth activist with the Italian Social Movement (MSI), she attended the Camp Hobbit festival and sang along with the far-right folk band Compagnia dell'Anello, named after The Fellowship of the Ring. Later, she named her political conference Atreju, after the hero of the novel The Neverending Story. Meloni told The New York Times: "I think that Tolkien could say better than we can what conservatives believe in."
Apart from Tolkien, she is fond of British conservative philosopher Roger Scruton and has said: "If I were British I would be a Tory."
In addition to her native Italian, she speaks English, French and Spanish.
Honours and recognition
Forbes ranked Meloni as the seventh most powerful woman in the world in 2022 and placed her fourth in 2023. In 2024 she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. That same year, Meloni also received the Atlantic Council's Global Citizen Award.
Foreign honours
- Finland:
Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland (2023) - Ukraine:
Order of Liberty (2024)
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Electoral history
Meloni has been a member of Parliament since 2006, being most recently re-elected in 2022.
| Election | House | Constituency | Party | Votes | Result | |
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| 2006 | Chamber of Deputies | Lazio 1 | AN | – |  Elected |
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| 2008 | Chamber of Deputies | Lazio 2 | PdL | – | Elected |
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| 2013 | Chamber of Deputies | Lombardy 3 | FdI | – | Elected |
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| 2014 | European Parliament | Central Italy | FdI | 99,143 |  Not elected |
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| 2018 | Chamber of Deputies | Lazio 2 – Latina | FdI | 70,268 | Elected |
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| 2019 | European Parliament | Central Italy | FdI | 130,159 | Elected |
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| 2022 | Chamber of Deputies | Abruzzo – L'Aquila | FdI | 104,823 | Elected |
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| 2024 | European Parliament | Central Italy | FdI | 611,847 | Elected |
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First-past-the-post elections
Meloni won first-past-the-post elections for a parliamentary seat in both 2018 and 2022.
| 2018 general election (C): Latina | ||||
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| Candidate | Coalition | Votes | % | |
| Giorgia Meloni | Centre-right coalition | 70,268 | 41.0 | |
| Leone Martellucci | Five Star Movement | 62,563 | 36.5 | |
| Federico Fauttilli | Centre-left coalition | 26,293 | 15.3 | |
| Others | 12,269 | 7.2 | ||
| Total | 171,393 | 100.0 | ||
| 2022 general election (C): L'Aquila | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Coalition | Votes | % | |
| Giorgia Meloni | Centre-right coalition | 104,823 | 51.5 | |
| Rita Innocenzi | Centre-left coalition | 42,630 | 20.9 | |
| Attilio D'Andrea | Five Star Movement | 33,132 | 16.3 | |
| Others | 22,998 | 11.3 | ||
| Total | 203,583 | 100.0 | ||
Municipal elections
Meloni lost the municipal election to become mayor of Rome in 2016.
| 2016 municipal election: Rome | ||||||
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| Candidate | Coalition | Votes | % | Votes | % | |
| Virginia Raggi | Five Star Movement | 461,190 | 35.3 | 770,564 | 67.2 | |
| Roberto Giachetti | Centre-left coalition | 325,835 | 24.9 | 376,935 | 32.8 | |
| Giorgia Meloni | Centre-right coalition | 269,760 | 20.6 | |||
| Others | 251,160 | 19.2 | ||||
| Total | 1,307,945 | 100.0 | 1,147,499 | 100.0 | ||
See also
In Spanish: Giorgia Meloni para niños
