Just when her European counterparts felt they had her taped as a realistic, if staunch, conservative, Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, popped up on May 19th at a rally in Madrid organised by the Spanish hard-right party Vox, seemingly happy in the company of such hardliners as Marine Le Pen from France and Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei. Since coming into office, Ms Meloni has largely eschewed Eurosceptic talk, aware that Italy stands to receive almost €200bn ($217bn) from the EU’s pandemic-recovery fund. But speaking by video-link to the crowd in Madrid, she lambasted the European Commission as “a bureaucratic giant that aspires to regulate every aspect of our lives while being unable to offer a clear geopolitical vision”. She promised a different Europe, but left fuzzy the outlines of her nativist nirvana.