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Yesterday, at Atreju’s final day in the gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo (Rome), Giorgia Meloni chose a tone that was both identity-driven and explicitly governmental: a long, dense address designed to hold together two strands that 2 treats as inseparable. On the one hand, the political community—its memory, its language, its cultural backbone. On the other, Italy’s international trajectory and the broader (and increasingly European) battle to shift the continental balance of power.
The morning signal: Morawiecki on Atreju’s closing stage
Before the Prime Minister’s closing speech, the final-day stage opened with Mateusz Morawiecki, President of the ECR Party and former Prime Minister of Poland. This was not a side event, and not a courtesy appearance. It carried political meaning.
Morawiecki’s presence on the closing-day stage—at the heart of the programme, not on the margins—should be read as a symbol of Fratelli d’Italia’s strategic investment in the European Conservatives and Reformists. In other words: Atreju is not only the home base of Meloni’s political identity; it is also the platform where the ECR area seeks a shared political grammar and, above all, an ambition to become a decisive force in Europe.
The presence of Mateusz Morawiecki on the final day’s main stage before Meloni’s closing address—and within the same closing-day block in which Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani were also in attendance—was not just a scheduling detail. It was a message aimed at Brussels. It signals that Fratelli d’Italia wants the ECR to be seen not as a mere “political family,” but as a power architecture capable of shaping European balances, pulling the EPP’s centre of gravity, and forcing the Commission and the traditional majorities to reckon with an increasingly structured conservative axis. In other words, Atreju is also used as a platform to say that the key battles—on defence, migration, and industrial policy—are won by shifting numbers and political culture in Europe, not only by building consensus in Italy.
Atreju as method: “Those who run away show they have no substance”
Meloni claimed Atreju as a real arena of confrontation, “where every idea has the right to exist” and “people’s worth is measured by substance.” Her most pointed line—aimed indirectly at those who choose absence—was blunt: “those who run away show they have no substance.”
The formula served two purposes. Internally, it consolidates a political community that still views itself as an insurgent force against established salons and entrenched power. Externally, it flips a familiar accusation directed at the right: it is not the conservatives who fear debate; it is often their opponents who fear a field where arguments matter more than media positioning.
A message to the governing coalition: unity as a “community of destiny”
A significant portion of the speech addressed the centre-right coalition. Meloni rejected the idea that her government is a mere “accident” or a marriage of convenience, describing the majority as a “community of destiny.” She also drew a contrast with the opposition: “we are allies and we are friends… on our side we argue… to find a synthesis,” while on the other side—she suggested—the problem is that they do not even want to confront one another “among themselves.”
The underlying point was political rather than rhetorical: stability is not a virtue in the abstract, but a condition for governing in an international cycle that demands speed, credibility, and coherence.
Domestic balance sheet: work, taxes, “fairness” and the middle class
On domestic policy, Meloni insisted on work as the primary metric, pointing to record employment and the lowest unemployment rate in decades. She presented this as the outcome of a strategy aimed at restoring centrality to productive Italy.
She then linked budgetary and tax choices to a political definition of fairness: cutting personal income tax and lowering the tax wedge, with the argument that the real dividing line is not anti-wealth rhetoric but the defence of the middle class and working families. In a pointed passage, she challenged the idea that someone earning €2,500 gross per month—while paying a mortgage and supporting a family—should be branded “rich,” contrasting that caricature with the reality of entrenched power and protected rents.
International posture: “Italy loyal… but subordinate to no one”
The geopolitical core of the speech came when Meloni addressed European security and the relationship with the United States in the Trump era. Her summary line was clear: “we want an Italy that is loyal to all its partners, but subordinate to no one.”
From there came the line that carried the sharpest edge: “Good morning, Europe.” Meloni argued that if Washington signals a stronger retrenchment, Europe cannot continue living off strategic outsourcing. “For eighty years we outsourced our security to the United States… there was a price to pay, and it is called conditioning… freedom has a price.”
In this framework, she pressed for strengthening Europe’s defence and security capacity, going as far as to evoke a “European pillar within NATO,” able to deal “as equals” with the United States—without abandoning the Atlantic bond, but ending the logic of dependence.
Ukraine: support without ambiguity—national interest and European security
The most unequivocal segment—consistent with a firmly pro-Ukraine stance—concerned support for Kyiv. Meloni reiterated that Italy has stood “from the first day” with the Ukrainian people, portraying Russia’s aggression as a neo-imperial project and framing Italy’s choice not only as a moral position, but as national interest and European security—with the objective of reaching peace.
Politically, the logic is precise: sovereignty cannot be defended at home if Europe accepts that borders can be redrawn by force.
The Mediterranean, the Middle East, identity: foreign policy as projection of the nation
The speech also made room for Italy’s Mediterranean posture: energy, trade routes, control of flows, and an active role on Middle Eastern dossiers, paired with references to diplomacy and humanitarian engagement. Meloni also defended Italy’s role in assistance and aid, setting it against what she cast as propaganda.
On the internal-cultural front, identity was treated as a matter of cohesion and security: from criticism of fundamentalism to proposals such as banning the full-face veil, framed within an integration model that requires respect for the laws and customs of the host country.
Europe: not decline, but mission—and this is where ECR returns
Meloni’s argument on Europe moved on two tracks: criticism of a bureaucratic and ideological Europe, coupled with a defence of European civilisation as a living entity. “Europe is not in decline… it is a living civilisation that still has a mission,” she said, adding that it must not “ask permission to exist.”
And here the meaning of Morawiecki’s morning appearance becomes even clearer. Meloni explicitly thanked him and the “great family of European Conservatives,” linking the ECR’s work to the effort to build alternative majorities in the European Parliament—starting from concrete dossiers such as illegal immigration and border defence—as evidence that paradigms change when someone “has the courage to say things as they are.”
Why Morawiecki “before” Meloni matters more than a photo
If Atreju’s closing speech traditionally sets the national political line, yesterday’s programme order hinted at something more: Fratelli d’Italia wants the European profile of the event to be part of the government narrative, not an appendix.
Morawiecki on the closing-day stage, as President of the ECR Party, signals that for Meloni the European dimension is not a corollary. It is an axis. Because the battle for a more realistic Europe on defence, a tougher Europe on irregular migration, and a more production-minded Europe less governed by rule-worship cannot be won in Rome alone. It is won by shifting majorities—and language—in Brussels.