Italy’s leader ahead in race to be Trump’s main EU ally

A key factor will be Giorgia Meloni’s close relationship with Elon Musk, a friendship that led to romance rumours last year.

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, 47, is seen as the ‘natural interlocutor’ between Europe and Trump’s incoming administration. Picture: Ludovic Marin / AFP

Leaders are competing to be Europe’s point of contact for Donald Trump when he re-enters the White House, and Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, is ahead in the race.

Meloni, 47, is seen as the “natural interlocutor” between Europe and Trump’s incoming administration by those closest to her.

Italian sources have said that she was the first European leader to congratulate Trump, a conversation she described as cementing an “unshakeable” alliance between them.

In June 2023, Giorgia Meloni hosted Elon Musk at her official residence in Rome where the pair talked about AI, and displayed their chemistry as they laughed and hugged. Most visitors get a handshake. Picture: Chigi Palace Press Office/Shuterstock

A key factor will be her close relationship with Elon Musk, a friendship that led to romance rumours last year.

Musk, 53, who threw his support behind Trump, spending election night at his resort in Mar-a-Lago, is expected to play an important role in America’s incoming government.

“I consider Elon Musk an added value at this time,” Meloni said on Friday at an EU summit in Budapest, adding: “I think that he should and can be an interlocutor”.

Under a picture of them embracing on X, the platform owned by Musk, she lauded his “commitment and vision”.

However, Italy’s continued failure to meet NATO’s defence target of 2 per cent, let alone the 3 per cent target Trump is now demanding of the western military alliance, could be a problem for Meloni.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban enthusiastically backed the president-elect and is Europe’s loudest supporter of Trump’s plan to seek a quick peace deal with Russia. Picture: Attila Kisbenedek / AFP

Also in the running for the role of Trump’s main European contact is Viktor Orban, Hungary’s nationalist prime minister. Orban enthusiastically backed the president-elect and is Europe’s loudest supporter of Trump’s plan to seek a quick peace deal with Russia, which would pull the plug on western support for Ukraine.

“If Trump had won in 2020 in the US, these two nightmarish years wouldn’t have happened. There wouldn’t have been a war,” he said.

However, on Thursday night he played down his potential for the role, claiming “size does matter”, referring to Hungary being a small and poor country.

Another contender is Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland. Duda and Trump enjoyed a private dinner in New York in April and, last month the president-elect described him as a “friend”.

The Times