The centre-left should take note

After four years, the Meloni government must be credited with stability and fiscal rigour, even if the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has prioritised austerity over spending review. Fitto and Foti have managed the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) in loyal collaboration with all parties. Then come the sore points. On healthcare, the record is a total failure: insufficient resources, confused reforms and ambiguity over vaccines. On climate change, action is taken only after emergencies, without a prevention strategy. Musumeci, after his ‘lessons’ in flood-hit Emilia-Romagna, discovered in Sicily just how easy it is to speculate and how difficult it is to govern. It is even worse in areas where expectations were high: infrastructure and growth. No breakthroughs, and one fault stands out above all: having downgraded the priority of energy at the first sign of falling prices, putting the brakes on renewables and using nuclear power as a weapon of mass distraction. The real masterstroke, however, remains security and immigration: landings continue, cities remain unsafe, and the government is opening up new channels for hundreds of thousands of workers. Vannacci says thank you. In foreign policy, she had set out to applause: Ukraine, transatlantic dialogue, the Mattei Plan. Today, having abandoned Italy’s multilateral and pacifist tradition, we carry no weight in Europe; and with Trump, we seem to be suffering from Stendhal syndrome: he insults us, yet we continue to love him. Meloni remains a skilful party leader, but she has not become the country’s leader. She is bringing this parliamentary term to a poor close, between the witch-hunt against Vannacci and the politically motivated attacks on Sánchez, which have backfired. She knows she cannot win the elections again, at least not without tampering with the rules through unconstitutional tricks. The centre-left should take note, not only to win, but to give Italy and Europe the fresh start they deserve.