Giorgia Meloni, Trump’s friend in Europe, seeks distance on Iran.

By MOTOKO RICH

During a visit to the White House last year, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy bonded with President Donald Trump over their shared opposition to “woke” ideologies and migration. After the meeting, Meloni, the only sitting European leader to attend Trump’s second presidential inauguration, said she was proud of their “privileged relationship.”

Now, as an American war with Iran causes economic pain throughout Europe, Meloni’s once vaunted friendship with Trump is proving to be a liability, just as she is seeking to win a tight referendum later this month over a contentious judicial change.

Meloni has led one of the longest and most stable governments in Italy’s tumultuous postwar history — and her party still outperforms its rivals in the national polls. Yet the war and her handling of it is raising some of the thorniest political challenges she has faced since entering office in 2022.

Critics have condemned her for failing to wield any visible influence over Trump’s wartime decisions and for her ambivalent response to his decision to attack Iran.

New surveys suggest the opposition is gaining ground in the referendum campaign and may even defeat the judicial proposal in the vote later this month. The proposed changes center on a plan to divide oversight of prosecutors and judges, who are currently jointly supervised by a single body, and to make it harder for lawyers to move between the two professions. Meloni’s government says the changes would help make judges more independent from prosecutors, while critics say the new system would make prosecutors and judges more beholden to politicians.

Because many voters and commentators find the details of the proposal arcane and confusing, the vote to approve them has instead been framed as a plebiscite on Meloni herself — presenting her with a moment of rare jeopardy.

“Politics is made of these kinds of moments in which at some point someone looks invincible and they slip on a first banana skin,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute of International Affairs, a Rome-based research group. “And all of a sudden they lose their luster.”

Meloni was caught on the back foot when the United States began bombing Iran late last month without consulting any European allies. While some European leaders received a courtesy call just before the attacks, the Italians were left unaware. Meloni’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for a family vacation and had to be evacuated by military plane.

Her critics pounced. “For months, they’ve been telling us across all networks that Meloni was the bridge between Trump and Europe. Unfortunately, it was all fake news!” Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister and centrist opposition leader, wrote on social media. “What an embarrassment.”

Meloni has since been forced to triangulate between placating Trump by avoiding outright condemnation of the war; trying to fulfill defense cooperation agreements with Arab countries in the Persian Gulf; and assuaging Italian public opinion, which is firmly against the war. Polls show that about two-thirds of Italians have a negative view of the attacks on Iran.

Illustrating that balancing act, Meloni said in parliament Wednesday that the world was “facing an evident crisis in international law and multilateral organizations, and the collapse of a shared world order” but stopped short of explicitly condemning Trump’s decision to attack.

Her government has agreed to send naval ships to defend Cyprus, a Mediterranean state that has come under retaliatory fire from Iran, and missile and drone defense systems to protect Arab allies in the Persian Gulf that have suffered Iranian bombardments. Still, Meloni said in parliament, “Italy is not taking part and does not intend to take part” in the conflict.

From a strategic point of view, keeping a fluid position “is very rational to stay in power,” said Leila Simona Talani, director of the Center for Italian Politics at King’s College London. “Any position that she takes could be detrimental to her own role.”