That helps explain the third element in the Meloni mix: moderation. Ms Meloni’s actions in office have belied her radical rhetoric. Despite her earlier Euroscepticism, her finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, has scrupulously respected the EU’s fiscal rules. The budget deficit has dropped from over 8% of GDP during the pandemic to around 3%. Ms Meloni has crafted an effective relationship with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. She has unwaveringly supported Ukraine, defying those on the Italian right with a soft spot for Russia. And she has stood up to Donald Trump over the war in Iran and his attacks on the pope. On migration too, her bark has been worse than her bite. The government’s immigration restrictions have sensibly left room to accommodate Italy’s need for additional labour. With little publicity, it has authorised 450,000 visas for migrants from outside the EU. It has also launched an investment plan for Africa, nominally intended to tackle the poverty that drives migrants to leave. To satisfy hard-right voters, Ms Meloni has built an expensive camp in Albania to process asylum claims outside Italy. That scheme has so far been obstructed by the courts, and the camp holds no more than 80 people. But it may now go ahead: in June the EU approved such hubs for asylum-seekers from safe countries. Ms Meloni’s example suggests that for Europe’s populists, moderation is the key to staying in office and wielding power. But not all of them see it that way. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), Germany’s hard rightists, have radicalised ever further while rising to first place in national polls. Tino Chrupalla, the AfD’s co-leader, has vowed never to accept “Melonisation” (ie, compromise on Ukraine or migration). Moreover, Ms Meloni herself might not govern as moderately in future. If France’s populist right wins next year’s presidential election, the EU might cease to be as much of a restraining factor. With the post-covid fund having run its course, there will be no worries about losing access to it. And the Italian prime minister has proposed an electoral reform that would give the winning alliance extra seats in parliament, cementing its majority. Should her side win the next election, due by December 2027, it could then influence who becomes Italy’s next president; the current one, the left- leaning Sergio Mattarella, has been a brake on her power. Ms Meloni also wants to introduce direct elections for prime minister. That could give her a
personal authority no Italian prime minister has possessed. Not since Mussolini, anyway. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/08/27/giorgia-meloni-is-italys-steadiest- postwar-prime-minister
The renewed threat to global grain supplies Unlike in 2022, both Ukraine’s and Russia’s exports are under attack Aug 27th 2026 CLOSE TO A third of global wheat exports sail out of Russian and Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In 2022, when invading Russian forces attacked Ukrainian infrastructure in the region, the price of wheat and other grains spiked worldwide. It took a Turkish- brokered deal and the establishment of a protected Ukrainian shipping corridor to bring them down. In recent weeks renewed fighting has again been disrupting exports—and this time it is not only Ukraine’s sales that are getting thumped. Analysts have started to ask if a second global grain crunch could be on the way. In previous attacks Russia fired its missiles at infrastructure in Odessa and other Ukrainian ports. Then, starting in July, it began targeting the merchant
ships that sail to them. Few crews are now willing to run the risk. The step up in Russian attacks is in part a response to strikes that Ukraine has been launching against Russian targets. Ukrainian drones have more or less closed the Sea of Azov to Russian shipping. This month Ukraine also badly damaged grain terminals at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk—the largest wheat-exporting port in the world, through which over 30% of Russia’s wheat exports pass. The impact is already stark. In August last year Russia and Ukraine exported 6.3m tonnes of wheat between them. That made up a big dollop of the 16m tonnes that crossed borders around the world that month. This August their combined exports may reach only about 2.5m tonnes, and could fall further if hostilities continue, reckons Ishan Bhanu of Kpler, a data firm. Disruption to agricultural exports leaving the Black Sea is “the worst it has ever been” since the region became a major route for global foodstuffs, says Carlos Mera, an analyst at Rabobank. Both countries are exploring alternative ways of getting goods to market. They face big difficulties in doing so. During the crisis in 2022 Ukraine began using road and rail to get its grain to the Danube River, along which it could travel to Black Sea ports considered safe from attack, such as Constanta in Romania. But capacity on this route is limited, and particularly
so this year because of low water levels. Moreover, farmers elsewhere in eastern Europe grumble that the workaround creates extra demand for shipping and haulage; that pushes up their transport costs even as it reduces demand for their product, notes Joseph Glauber of the International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington-based group. As for Russia, its agriculture ministry says it is working to send more grain to ports on the Baltic and Caspian seas. But these routes can probably handle only a fraction of the backlog. What this will mean for international prices is hotly debated. Wheat prices have been rising for weeks, reaching two-year highs in recent sessions (some 25% above their level at the start of the year). Yet they are only about half the level seen at the peak of the crisis in 2022. Several factors have, so far, helped hold prices down. One is the timing of the disruption: importing countries in the northern hemisphere have just finished harvesting their own crops, and thus can postpone some imports, says Mr Bhanu. And 2025 was a bumper year for global wheat production, so many countries still have sizeable stores to draw from. For the moment, markets are betting that the disruption to Russian and Ukrainian exports will be short-lived. Whether they are right depends on a hotch-potch of variables that are hard to predict, says Mr Mera:
developments in the war, water levels in the Danube, how long damaged port facilities take to repair and the whims of insurers, among other things. Experts’ forecasts of how much grain Ukraine will manage to export over the full season, he notes, are currently all over the place. Whereas last year’s global wheat harvest was bountiful, this year’s seems likely to disappoint. Wheat exports from America, Canada and the European Union will probably fall this year, in part because of drought and in part because farmers bet that other crops would be more profitable, notes Mr Glauber. He says Australia’s wheat crop could fall by more than 20% due to the El Niño weather pattern and increased fertiliser costs (caused by hold- ups in the Strait of Hormuz). The world is still far from the grain crunch of four years ago. But if disruptions in the Black Sea last, prices will keep heading up.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/08/24/the-renewed-threat-to-global-grain- supplies
Europe’s new renewable-energy champion is a surprise Romania is leading the EU in combining solar power and batteries Aug 27th 2026 Europe likes to think of itself as a champion of renewable energy. In fact the rate of solar-power installation on the continent is plateauing. In 2025 the European Union added 67.2 gigawatts (GW) of new generating capacity, scarcely more than in the previous year (see chart). This year new deployments are set to fall in every big EU country except Italy.
The problem is the grid. On sunny days, solar farms can generate so much electricity that they overload networks’ capacity to move it to where it can be used or stored. At peak hours generators may have to disconnect, if they can, or pay users to offload their excess power, turning prices negative. In the first half of 2026, hours with negative prices were up 33% in Germany and 237% in Spain compared with the first half of 2024. European grid operators plan to spend hundreds of billions of euros on upgrades in the coming decade. One way to beat grid congestion is with batteries. The EU estimates it will need enough batteries by 2030 to supply 150GW of power from storage. By the end of 2025 it only had 37GW-worth installed. Member states are doing a mixed job of enacting the slew of reforms necessary to boost battery deployment. These include streamlining taxation, speeding up permitting approval and achieving closer co-ordination among Europe’s bewildering kaleidoscope of grid operators. Among the leaders in this effort is a country not usually seen as a green pioneer: Romania. “Unlike many western European countries, Romania is deploying storage relatively early in its solar build-out, rather than trying to catch up after large amounts of solar capacity have already been installed,” says Antonio Arruebo, an analyst at SolarPower Europe, an industry