Giorgia Meloni’s presence at Donald Trump’s inauguration aimed to reinforce her status as a privileged interlocutor with the new US administration. But this position carries risks for Italy and the EU.

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has emerged as the US president’s favourite EU interlocutor, with hopes growing she could talk him out of a trade war.

Critics noted the meeting's absence, but ECR Secretary-General Antonio Giordano, who was in Washington with Meloni, played down its significance to Euractiv, stating Meloni spent four hours with Trump, a meeting that had a positive outcome.

Italy will work to strengthen dialogue between the European Union and the United States, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on congratulating President Donald Trump on his return to the White House. "Italy will always work to strengthen the dialogue between the US and Europe,

Among EU leaders, however, only Meloni is confirmed to have received a personal invitation to the event, bolstered by her personal relationship with Trump, whom she recently visited at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni are fast forging a new transatlantic "special relationship". Italian Prime Minister Meloni was the sole European leader at Trump's presidential inauguration on Monday,