Giorgia Meloni

Born in 1977, Meloni joined the Youth Front of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement at fifteen, rising through student and youth wings of its post-fascist successor, the National Alliance. She became a Rome provincial councillor at twenty-one, then Italy's youngest-ever minister at thirty-one under Berlusconi. In 2012 she co-founded Brothers of Italy, steering it from the margins through years in opposition - the sole party refusing to join the pandemic-era national unity government - until it won the 2022 election outright. She now heads a conservative, populist government skeptical of Brussels, opposed to same-sex marriage, and committed to NATO's support for Ukraine despite her earlier warmth toward Moscow.