Giorgia Meloni will become Italy’s first female prime minister on Friday and elected her cabinet team, putting her stamp on the country’s most right-wing government since World War II.

Meloni, head of Italy’s nationalist Brothers of Italy, won elections last month in a coalition with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s League.

Her government – Italy’s 68th since 1946 – will replace the national unity government led by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who attended an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, his last act as prime minister.
She faces daunting challenges, not least a looming recession, rising energy bills and how to build a united front in the war in Ukraine.

Meloni, 45, named the Coalition’s Giancarlo Giorgetti as her economy minister and said the foreign ministry would travel from Forza Italia to Antonio Tajani.

Presidential official Ugo Zampetti told reporters after talks with President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale Palace in Rome: “Giorgia Meloni has accepted the on her list of ministers.”

The list of ministers read out by Meloni included only six other women who changed the fortunes of the Italian fraternity but had limited ministerial experience.

In total, nine ministries were assigned to the politicians of the Brothers of Italia, five each for the League and Forza Italia, and the technocrats were assigned five cabinet positions.

The new government will be formally sworn in on Saturday morning and next week faces a vote of confidence in both houses of parliament.

Although the process of forming a new government by Italian standards was quick, it also exposed tensions in the alliance, with Berlusconi repeatedly trying to undermine Meloni’s authority. Berlusconi, 86, serves in the Senate and, unsurprisingly, did not hold a cabinet position.

Coalition leader Salvini, whose authority has been undermined by the party’s relatively poor electoral performance, will serve as infrastructure minister.

Among other senior cabinet positions, the Interior Ministry is held by nonpartisan career civil servant Matteo Piandosi, and the Ministry of Defense is held by Guido Crosetto, one of the founders of the Brothers of Italia.

Meloni insisted this week that his administration would be completely pro-NATO and pro-European. “Anyone who disagrees with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government,” she said.

Berlusconi told Forza Italia lawmakers that she blamed Ukraine for the war and said he had exchanged gifts and “sweet letters” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.