Meloni after the referendum: new strategies to relaunch the government and the majority

When he returns from his mission to Algiers, he will reconvene the Council of Ministers and should also gather the majority leaders - Antonio Tajani, Matteo Salvini and Maurizio Lupi - for a summit. The first after the setback of the referendum, marked precisely by that popular vote of which the centre-right government claims to be an expression.

The first skein to be unravelled is that of the spring appointments: the renewals at the top of the public shareholding companies. The term of office of the boards of directors of Poste, Eni, Enel, Leonardo, Terna and Enav will come to an end with the spring shareholders' meetings. A game that is already complicated when navigation is calm, let alone in the midst of the storm. But that is not the only item on the agenda.

There is a whole agenda that now needs to be rethought. Because shelving the justice reform means, in fact, saying goodbye to the only constitutional reform approved by this government. The premierate, which was supposed to be (Meloni dixit) 'the mother of all reforms', is obviously considered destined for the freezer. The Ddl Roma Capitale needs the votes of the PD, with whose agreement it was written. Differentiated autonomy has already been demolished by the Consulta.

Only one weapon remains in the hands of the executive: the electoral law. It is in fact the one on which Fdi is betting, who immediately wanted to schedule it for Tuesday 31 March in the Constitutional Affairs Commission. But Forza Italia has put its hands up, through the mouth of Giorgio Mulè: "An agreement must be reached with the oppositions". And from the League they are already putting on the brakes, with the request to drop the farewell to the uninominal constituencies that could become more pressing.

Also under scrutiny are the preferences dear to Meloni's heart. Surely a reworking of the scheme imagined before the referendum will have to be done, if only to redo the accounts - numbers in hand - and equip oneself to face a large camp galvanised by the No vote victory. If before the law was meant to help the centre-right armour itself, in the name of stability, now it could actually be decisive in helping it win.

But there is another agenda in the agenda that worries Meloni: the economic one. The Fuel Decree, which cut excise duties on petrol and diesel by 25 cents per litre but whose effects were immediately felt by further price increases, will expire on 7 April. While the negotiations with the European Commission on the Bills Decree will run its course and clarify how much Italia will actually manage to wring out of the Ets issue, new interventions will be necessary, especially if the crisis in Iran and the Gulf is not resolved as quickly as Donald Trump promises.

Also in April, the Public Finance Document will put in black and white the health of public accounts, the new GDP growth forecast and the margins of manoeuvre. Then the long march towards the budget law for 2027 will begin. Meloni imagined it finally rich, 'electoral'. But between emergencies and defence commitments to be kept, even that prop risks becoming fragile.