The Meloni government is the 68th and current government of the Italian Republic, the first headed by Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, who is also the first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister of Italy. The government was sworn in on 22 October 2022. It was one of the fastest government formations in the history of the Italian Republic. It was variously described as a shift to the political right, as well as the first far-right-led coalition in Italy since World War II. In September 2026, it became the longest-serving government in the history of the Italian Republic.
Supporting parties PartyMain ideologyLeaderGovernment partiesBrothers of Italy (FdI)National conservatismGiorgia MeloniLeague (Lega)Right-wing populismMatteo SalviniForza Italia (FI)Liberal conservatismSilvio Berlusconi (died on 12 June 2023)Antonio Tajani (since 15 July 2023)Parties with secondary government positionsUs Moderates (NM)Liberal conservatismMaurizio LupiExternal supportUnion of the Centre (UDC)Christian democracyLorenzo CesaCoraggio Italia (CI)Liberal conservatismLuigi BrugnaroAssociative Movement of Italians Abroad (MAIE)Italians abroad interestsRicardo MerloAnimalist Movement (MA)Animal rightsMichela Vittoria Brambilla
History Government formation
Immediately after the first meeting of the Italian Parliament's new legislature, tensions began to grow within the centre-right coalition. On 13 October, Silvio Berlusconi refused to support Ignazio La Russa, a politician with a neo-fascist background who was the Brothers of Italy (FdI) candidate to be President of the Senate of the Republic. However, La Russa succeeded in being elected by obtaining 116 votes out of 206 in the first round, thanks to the support from opposition parties to the centre-right coalition. Tensions further grew, in particular between Berlusconi and Giorgia Meloni, whom Berlusconi described as "patronising, overbearing, arrogant" and "offensive" in a series of written notes in the Senate. In the following days, after meetings between parties' leader, tensions loosened and the centre-right coalition parties reached an agreement on the formation of the new cabinet. Berlusconi also complained about the treatment that Forza Italia received, because he wanted 7 ministries and not 4 (since Lega held the Presidency of the Chamber, and FdI the Presidency of the Senate, which according to Berlusconi have always been worth 1 and 2 ministries for those who don't have them), but Meloni laughed in his face and granted him only one more ministry.
On 20 October, consultations between President Sergio Mattarella and parties officially began. On the following day, delegates from FdI, the Lega, whose member Lorenzo Fontana had been elected President of the Chamber of Deputies on 14 October), Forza Italia (FI), and the group of Civics of Italy–Us Moderates–MAIE told Mattarella they had reached an agreement to form a coalition government with Meloni as prime minister. In the afternoon, Mattarella summoned Meloni to the Quirinal Palace, asking her to form a new government. Meloni accepted the task, and on the same day assembled a cabinet, which was officially sworn in on 22 October, becoming the first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister of Italy. The government successfully won the confidence vote, held in late October, with a comfortable majority in both houses.
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 government. During her speech, she stressed the weight of being the first woman to serve as head of the Italian government. Meloni 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." On 31 October, the government nominated its deputy ministers and undersecretaries. Galeazzo Bignami, one of the chosen deputy ministers, caused controversy and garnered international attention as a 2005 photo of him with a Nazi armband became public.
Investiture vote House of ParliamentVotePartiesVotesChamber of Deputies Yes FdI, Lega, FI, CdI–NM–MAIE No PD–IDP, M5S, A–IV, AVS, +E Abstention SVP, ScN, UV Senate of the Republic Yes FdI, Lega, FI, CdI–NM–MAIE No PD–IDP, M5S, A–IV, AVS, +E, SVP Abstention SVP, ScN
Domestic policies Meloni's government first decree law was related to the , the prison regime that excludes the perpetrators of violent crimes, in particular those related to the mafia and terrorism, from receiving benefits in prison unless they collaborate with the justice system, which are known as . In 2021, the Constitutional Court of Italy held that this was unconstitutional, and this decree law was previously approved in the Chamber on 31 March 2022 but did not make it to the Senate due to the snap elections. One of the first measures implemented by the government regarded COVID-19 and concerned the complete removal of the COVID-19 vaccination certificate, known in Italy as the Green Pass; moreover, the non-vaccinated doctors were re-integrated into service. Another policy deemed of priority by the new right-wing government is raising the cash ceiling, which critics argue it favours tax evasion and unreported employment, while its proponents including Meloni reject this; a poll by Izi showed that 6 out of 10 right-wing voters agreed that such a law would favour unreported employment.
Decree on protests and rallies On 31 October 2022, the government approved a decree providing for a penalty of up to six years of imprisonment for illegal parties and rallies. This came amid anti-fascist protests at La Sapienza University, which were subject of criticism due to the police's response, and a rally in Predappio, where Benito Mussolini is buried, to commemorate the centenary of the March on Rome that led to the takeover of Mussolini and Italian fascism of the government. Despite being officially presented as a decree against illegal rave parties, the law was applicable to any gathering over 50 people that the public authority deemed dangerous, which garnered criticism, including from jurist Vitalba Azzolini. The decree also caused protests from opposition parties and civil rights associations; according to Amnesty International, the decree "risked undermining the right to peaceful protest", while Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement compared it to a police state. The law was also contested by FI, which asked for changes, including the reduction of sentences to four years, while it was mainly supported by FdI and Lega, and FdI's justice minister Carlo Nordio was reportedly upset by the law.
Cultured meat ban In March 2023, Italy's Meloni government approved a draft bill banning the production and commercialization of cultured meat for human and animal consumption; this move, which the government said was intended to protect food heritage.
Italy became the first country to ban cultured meat in November 2023, when the government approved the bill.
Foreign ban on surrogacys On 16 October 2024, The Senate voted 84-58 in favor of extending a ban on surrogacy to couples who go abroad to avail of the procedure.
Autonomy On 23 January 2024, the bill about "differentiated autonomy" (which aims to give much more autonomy to Italian regions, for a maximum of 23 specific subjects) was approved in the Senate, and it was then approved by the Chamber on 19 June. The law was criticised by the opposition and by various deputies and presidents of southern Italy (both from the majority and the opposition, such as Roberto Occhiuto of Forza Italia, president of Calabria, and Vincenzo De Luca of the PD, president of Campania), accusing the government of wanting to abandon the southern regions, favoring those of the north, and on 20 July a collection of signatures began to call an abrogative referendum.
Immigration Meloni campaigned heavily on a platform of reducing immigration, calling for a naval blockade of northern Africa, and the closure of ports, to reduce the numbers of asylum seekers traveling to Italy, although not all of these policies have been enacted.
Political analysts have characterised the government's migration policy as combining restrictive measures and deterrence with an expansion of legal migration channels. The Financial Times described the government's approach as a contrast between its public emphasis on controlling irregular migration and its need to admit foreign workers to address labour shortages. EUobserver similarly described the government's approach as combining hardline rhetoric and deterrence measures with expanded legal pathways for non-EU workers.
An early plan was to send asylum seekers to Albania, for processing. This was approved on 24 January 2024, by the Chamber of Deputies and later the Senate. However, this plan has faced several court challenges.
Meloni's government has repeatedly invoked newer and tougher laws to stem immigration including crackdowns on humanitarian boats assisting asylum seekers, creating special protection permits which prohibit arrivals from seeking asylum, using bone-density tests to establish the ages of teenage migrants, and holding asylum seekers for long periods in police stations and detention centres.
On 22 May 2024, the Government, through Minister Matteo Piantedosi and in agreement with the Slovenian and Croatian authorities, implemented a further six-month extension to the suspension of the Schengen Convention on the border with Slovenia, until 19 December; The previous five-month extension had been approved on 18 January (and would have lasted until 19 June).
The government issued over 450,000 permits to migrants between 2023 and 2025. In July 2025, it was reported that the government will issue nearly half a million or 500,000 work visas for non-EU nationals from 2026 to 2028. The quotas included allocations for workers from specified non-EU countries, particularly in Asia, Africa, and the Western Balkans.
In July 2026, following the Morocco–Spain border incident, Meloni called for Spain to be suspended from the EU's visa-free Schengen Area. Writing on X, she said that "uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a real threat to the security of Europe's borders." Sánchez rejected the criticism and argued on X that Italy had received significantly more migrants than Spain since 2021, citing approximately 478,000 undocumented migrants arriving in Italy as opposed to 234,000 in Spain.
Law and Order On 15 June 2023, the Council of Ministers approved, on the proposal of Minister Nordio, a bill on justice (also known informally at first as the "Berlusconi reform" and then the "Nordio Bill"), which abolished the crime of abuse of office and redesigned the appeal procedures in the first instance initiated by prosecutors against acquittals, as well as the use and dissemination of wiretapping. The bill was then be approved by the Senate on 13 February 2024, and then by the Chamber of Deputies on 10 July.
On 7 August, a change was also made to the crime of Undue Allocation of Money or Movable Property, implemented io replace the abolished abuse of office, together with some minor corrections, in order to allow the promulgation of the previous "Nordio Bill", which had remained suspended until then due to some perplexities of the Presidency of the Republic.