Not to state the obvious, but… it’s spring. As nature explodes with colours, smells and fluffy pollen, so too the mind brims with ideas, possibilities. As the weather warms and summer fruits are almost ready to be picked, I’ll indulge in a celebratory fruit salad of different stories: the Trump-Meloni quarrel, the perennial immigration push, Palestine. Plus, a goodbye to a much-loved media. But first, a shout-out to friend Oscar Boyd who is in the midst of another wild and wonderful two-wheeled adventure as he cycles the length of Italy, from south to north of the boot. Read his Substack for updates.
As a side note, fruit salad is, honest to God, one of my favourite foods — and, fun fact, its Italian name, macedonia, comes from that of the Balkan country. These days, I only ever eat macedonia at my gran’s, who, unlike myself, is patient enough to make it (one fruit at a time works well anyway). She recently taught me the cheeky hack of crumbling amaretti as a topping. But I digress…
Macedonia per tutti!
“Meloni and Trump on the rocks”. If this was a tabloid, that would be the headline. You’re probably aware of the public spat between the former besties. Trump lashed out at Pope Leo in the deranged way what only he — and your local bar’s resident drunk — know how (AI Trump-Jesus, anyone?). Meloni came out in defence of the pontiff, dressing Trump down in a way she hadn’t dared do before. She also said Italy wouldn’t renew its soon-to-expire defence pact with Israel. Trump reacted with “shock” at the “unacceptable” “lack of courage” of someone he had only recently called a “beautiful young woman” (what a relief to know that the patriarchy is alive and well).
Meloni has finally caught wind of the rather obvious fact that her closeness, ergo sycophancy and deference, to Trump is a liability. However empowered the Italian populist Right might have felt at various points that their totem politician holds the reins of one of the Earth’s superpowers, POTUS is unpopular. And it’s not just that I’m biased by my (inevitable) social bubble. In a poll this week, just 11% of Italians said they had confidence in Trump — a score lower than Putin’s — peaking at 24% among Lega voters.
Meloni is at a low-point of her tenure as she feels the burn of the referendum defeat, the cost-of-living spiral unleashed by her ex-BFF and his war-criminal pal in Tel Aviv, and Italy’s dismal economic performance and depressing budgetary prospects — move over Greece, we’re now the Eurozone’s most indebted country. Meloni may lose her nickname as the Trump whisperer but if standing up to the US’s most powerful narcissist can score the PM a few political points, then who is Giorgia to say no?
Immigration is another obvious buoy that the government is grasping on to in these choppy times. With mixed results. There was a huge blunder around the latest, hastily approved security decree and the inclusion of a 615 euro bonus — i.e., perverse incentive — for lawyers dealing with voluntary repatriation cases that resulted in their clients returning to their countries of origin. President Mattarella said he wouldn’t sign the bill and the government was forced to modify it. Now, the financial reward will go to all those, not just lawyers, dealing with voluntary repatriation cases, no matter the outcome.
I’ve already talked about the government’s curious relationship to the rule of law. A cash prize pushing lawyers and other unspecified professionals towards dealing with voluntary repatriations — with a whopping 675 of them taking place last year — shouldn’t exist at all because of the obvious distortions it creates. It also begs the question of whether this is a sensible use of scant public funds.
And just note that in 2025, the Italian population didn’t contract for the first time in 12 years. No, silly, not because people had more children as they felt more confident in starting a family. It was because of immigration.
To add insult to injury, last Saturday, the far-right, nationalist Patriots for Europe marched in Milan, with the Lega the only Italian political outfit showing up for the party. The event was initially supposed to mirror the “Remigration Summit” whose first edition was held near Milan last year, but it gradually changed its costume as some participants, including Lega leader and deputy PM Salvini, distanced themselves from the term “remigration”. As journalist Leila Belhadj Mohamed pointed out in her Substack Matassa, unlike “repatriation”, this isn’t a legal concept, but a political one, increasingly embraced by the anti-immigrant Right.
“Repatriation and remigration are starting to overlap in the lexicon … blurring the boundary between what is already in force and what is still just a proposal” (Leila Belhadj Mohamed in Matassa)
A few more bites…
I’ll make this quick, as I’m sure there’ll be space to talk more about the gravitas of the Palestinian issue in coming dispatches. Going back to the government’s decision to suspend its defence pact with Israel — does this finally signal a morally and legally defensible stance against the genocide? Unfortunately not. Soon after, Italy, together with Germany, blocked a proposal by other EU states to suspend the EU-Israel trade agreement, as is also being called for by a citizens’ initiative that has so far gathered over 1 million signatures.
This week, the Global Sumud Flotilla held a big launch event in Siracusa, Sicily, as boats congregated before undertaking the next leg of the journey that will (hopefully) take them to Gaza. And the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office said it’s investigating crimes of torture, together with others such as kidnapping, by the Israeli army against the 36 Italians who were aboard the flotilla’s previous mission, which was blocked by the IDF in early October.
Given how the flotilla has galvanised the strong pro-Palestinian sentiments of many in Italy, more will certainly follow.
Last week, media behemoth Condé Nast announced the closure of several of its titles, including, sadly, the Italian edition of Wired — this happened, ironically, on the day of the national journalists’ strike and as the 20th edition of the International Journalism Festival was underway in Perugia. Apparently, employees found out about Wired’s liquidation like the rest of us did, through Condé Nast’s public memo. Soon, we’ll say goodbye to another member of a dwindling group of free, quality news sites in Italian, one especially apt at speaking both to niche and general audiences. I had the good fortune of writing for Wired a few times, exploring the conflicts between the technological rat race and our digital rights.
Ciao Wired, you’ll be missed!
In Italy, most days feels like a tuffo — a “dive” — into chaos.
I’m Mara Budgen, a journalist based in Milan, where I returned in 2025 after a five-year stint in Tokyo. (Don’t be fooled by my (British) surname: I’m as italiana as love for carbs and disorderly queueing.) In this Substack, published every other week, I dive into the latest news and stories to go under the surface of what’s happening in Italy. No stereotypes about la dolce vita, but an honest look at the currents and events shaping this peninsula that I and 60 million other people call home.