Berlusconi in remarks to his center-right Forza Italia party lawmakers, delivered what was tantamount to justification for the Russian invasion in February to install what he called a \u201cdecent\u201d government in the Ukrainian capital.<\/p>\n

After making clear she’d rather not govern than lead a coalition with any partner wavering over continued Italian support for Ukraine, aligned with Europe and NATO \u2014 \u201cItaly with us in government will never be the weak link of the West\u201d \u2014 Meloni tapped as her foreign minister a longtime Berlusconi stalwart with solid pro-Europe credentials. Antonio Tajani formerly was president of the European Parliament. <\/p>\n

With potential wavering in Parliament by her Russian-sympathizing allies, as well as from former Premier Giuseppe Conte, a populist opposition leader, over continued arms supplies to Ukraine, Meloni appointed one of her party co-founders, Guido Crosetto, as defense minister.<\/p>\n

While Meloni has pitched herself as crucial to combating leftist ideology, Crosetto sounded a more conciliatory note.<\/p>\n

“Whoever governs represents the entire nation, sheds partisan attire and takes on that of collective responsibility,\u201d the new defense minister told reporters.<\/p>\n

Europe’s political right, eager to dominate on the continent, exulted in Meloni’s coming to power.<\/p>\n

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, referring to Meloni and Salvini, wrote on Twitter: \u201cThroughout Europe, patriots are coming to power and with them, this Europe of nations.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also hailed the birth of her new government as a \u201cbig day for the European Right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meloni will lay out her priorities when she pitches for support in Parliament ahead of confidence votes required of new governments. Voting is expected within a few days.<\/p>\n

While her government holds a comfortable majority in the legislature, the vote could indicate any cracks in her coalition if any of her partners’ lawmakers, perhaps disgruntled by not getting ministries they wanted for their parties, don’t rally behind her.<\/p>\n

Meloni’s government replaces that led by Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief who was appointed by Mattarella in 2021 to lead a pandemic national unity coalition. Meloni was the only major party leader to refuse to join that coalition, insisting governments must be decided by the voters.<\/p>\n

In any unusual touch for a country used to male-dominated politics and power, attending the swearing-in ceremony in a sumptuous room of the Quirinal Palace was Meloni’s companion, who is a journalist in Berlusconi’s media empire, and their 6-year-old daughter, Ginevra. <\/p>\n

While Meloni didn’t campaign openly to be Italy’s first woman premier, she has said there would be no doubt that her victory would be clearly breaking through the \u201cglass ceiling\u201d that discourages women’s progress.<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Giada Zampano in Rome contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giorgia Meloni, whose political party with neo-fascist roots emerged victorious in recent elections, was sworn in on Saturday as Italy\u2019s first far-right premier since the end of World War II. She is also the first woman to be premier. Meloni, 45, recited the oath of office before President Sergio Mattarella, who formally asked her to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/AP22295236803475-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7561,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions\/7561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}