<\/p>
Driving down the streets of New Delhi in March 2023, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni looked out the window to find her own face smiling back at her every few feet. Giant billboards bearing her image and the word “Welcome” lined the roads to mark her arrival for high-level bilateral talks and the 8th Raisina Dialogue.<\/p>
By the time her official visit concluded, the signage had seamlessly transitioned to show the exact same image, updated with a new message: “Thank you for visiting.”\u00a0<\/p>
The exhaustive display left a lasting impression not just on Meloni, but on her accompanying delegation. In her newly released book,\u00a0Giorgia’s Vision \u2014 compiled from a series of candid conversations with journalist Alessandro Sallusti \u2014 Meloni reflects on the warm reception and the humor it provoked among her staff.\u00a0<\/p>
MUST READ | ‘It has been a…’: Meloni congratulates Modi on becoming India’s longest-serving elected PM<\/strong><\/p> “My colleague Antonio Tajani, who was with me, joked: ‘With all these posters, if you ran for the New Delhi constituency, you’d get a million votes’,” Meloni recalls in her memoir.\u00a0<\/p> The anecdote serves as a central theme in a chapter titled “Head Held High Among the World Greats,” where the 49-year-old leader argues that effective statecraft relies heavily on personal chemistry and moving past rigid protocols. She visited India twice in 2023, returning in September for the G20 Summit, during which her interactions and rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi frequently captured public attention.\u00a0<\/p> “A few witty words, a personal story, a common interest \u2014 it can make all the difference,” Meloni writes, noting that small gestures and informal moments often lay the groundwork for trust between nations.\u00a0<\/p> DON’T MISS | \u2018We\u2019re most famous couple on Instagram\u2019: Giorgia Meloni tells PM Modi in G7 Summit<\/strong><\/p> The memoir details several such instances where unconventional interactions cemented strong bilateral ties. Meloni shares how a tense, two-hour negotiation with Tunisian President Kais Saied shifted completely during an impromptu break. Standing on his residence terrace overlooking the sea, Meloni\u00a0\u2014 who had recently resumed smoking after a 13-year hiatus \u2014 asked if she could light a cigarette.\u00a0<\/p> “He was overjoyed! He pulled out his own pack of cigarettes, and that coffee and cigarette break became our moment,” she writes, explaining that some of her most durable diplomatic connections have been forged over shared breaks rather than around boardroom tables.\u00a0<\/p> Similar personal touches define her relationships with other global figures. She notes her spontaneous friendship with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who texts her frequently in fluent Italian, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, who shares her appreciation for Italian wine and once gifted her orange roses on her birthday.<\/p> DO CHECKOUT | After PM Modi\u2019s viral melody gift to Giorgia Meloni, Delhi cafe launches \u2018Modi Ji\u2019s Melody Gelato\u2019<\/strong><\/p> She also recounts how former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida touched her by presenting a giant Hello Kitty doll to her daughter, Ginevra, and how Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki arranged a coffee meeting at a\u00a0Lord of the Rings-themed cafe in Warsaw to indulge her love for J.R.R. Tolkien.\u00a0<\/p> Beyond casual anecdotes,\u00a0Giorgia’s Vision\u00a0explores broader themes of leadership, national identity, meritocracy, faith, and family, presenting a modern perspective on global governance through a humanised lens.<\/p> <\/div> Giorgia Meloni memoir, India Italy relations, international diplomacy, world leaders anecdotes, political autobiography, bilateral ties, global statecraft#039You039d #million #votes…039Italian #Meloni039smemoir #recalls2023 #Delhi1782407255<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Driving down the streets of New Delhi in March 2023, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni looked out the window to find her own face smiling back at her every few feet. Giant billboards bearing her image and the word “Welcome” lined the roads to mark her arrival for high-level bilateral talks and the 8th Raisina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[41765,13395,622,41760,41764,32720,41761,41767,2779,41763,41768,41766,41762],"class_list":["post-10496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-marketing","tag-039you039d","tag-bilateral-ties","tag-delhi","tag-giorgia-meloni-memoir","tag-global-statecraft","tag-india-italy-relations","tag-international-diplomacy","tag-meloni039smemoir","tag-million","tag-political-autobiography","tag-recalls2023","tag-votes-039italian","tag-world-leaders-anecdotes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}