The designated Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, has already kept one election promise, perhaps her most important one, at least for the time being: not to do "any crazy things".

Meloni has assured the Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Italy will continue the policies of the outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi under her leadership: continue to support Kyiv with money and weapons, continue to impose sanctions on Moscow, continue to pull together with the EU and NATO in the Ukraine war.

Meloni is sending the signal to the nation and international partners that she will present a cabinet list of "high-profile personalities" so that the new government can make "bella figura" at home and abroad.

That in itself is a huge task, for which the 45-year-old politician needs all her political skills.

Their coalition partners Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, political alpha animals, were badly depressed by the voters: together, the “historic” parties of the two men did not even get two thirds of the votes that the soon to be most powerful woman in the country won with her “New Party “ reached.

If Meloni can't prevail at home against the self-confessed Putin understanders Salvini and Berlusconi in the fateful question of war, her path from the fringe to the center, from the dirty right-wing corner to the political center, will soon come to an end.

However, Meloni cannot disavow the two “halved” party leaders, nor play them off against each other, because the right-wing alliance only has a majority in parliament when there are three of them.

When setting up her government team, Meloni has to find the balance between partisan pressure and professional competence.

A change of direction inland and into Europe

The designated head of government also has little room for maneuver in financial and European policy.

Italy is dependent on almost 200 billion euros from the EU recovery fund, and the Commission has just released another tranche of 21 billion.

Rome cannot afford a dispute, a kind of ideological conflict or even a legal dispute with Brussels.

Meloni is calling for a European solution to the European energy crisis, namely a European cap on gas prices.

Not only in this question is she a docile pupil of Mario Draghi - so much so that the outgoing prime minister has just denied that he had guaranteed the partners in the EU that there would be a change of government in Rome without a change of direction.

Because there will be a change of direction, both internally and towards Europe, maybe not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow.

A centre-right government under Meloni will have solid democratic legitimacy: for the first time since 2008, a party leader with a clear “direct mandate” from the electorate will move into the Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of Italian prime ministers, rather than making the journey there Found in backroom negotiations or after the President's appointment.

The national conservatives in Europe will make themselves heard on major issues such as nation and migration, Europe as an ever closer union or subsidiary federation, traditional family structure instead of “rainbow society”.