Giorgia Meloni’s honeymoon period is over

Giorgia Meloni has worked hard to establish herself as a bridge between Europe and Donald Trump’s United States. She was the only European leader invited to Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, along with Argentina’s Javier Milei and China’s Xi Jinping. She has also been a key figurehead for the Mega (Make Europe Great Again) doctrine, an on-the-nose nod to Trump’s Maga ideology. Mega could count on Meloni in western Europe and Viktor Orbán in eastern Europe as its cornerstones – the latter even adopting the acronym for Hungary’s EU Council presidency in 2024. Orbán’s electoral defeat on 12 April, however,…