Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi arriving for the meeting with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy in Brussels yesterday. Photo: Remo Casilli/Reuters

It has been a long time since an Italian leader went to Brussels with as strong a hand as the one held by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose triumph in last month’s European elections left him with a big say on who should head the EU Commission.

Winning the biggest victory for any Italian government since the 1950s four months after deposing his cautious predecessor Enrico Letta in a party coup, Renzi was one of the few leaders in Europe to defy the rise of eurosceptic parties and emerge stronger from the vote on May 25.

The result gave the centre-left former mayor of Florence a political legitimacy that neither Letta nor his technocrat predecessor Mario Monti enjoyed. That will allow him to press for an easing in the austerity policies which have dominated Europe’s response to the financial crisis.

As EU leaders prepare to meet from June 26-27 to decide who will head the European Commission, Britain’s campaign to stop former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has given Renzi leverage to make Italy’s voice count.

In office only since February, Renzi has yet to establish much of a track record in Brussels negotiations but he knows that with Italy about to assume the revolving presidency of the European Union for six months, this is his moment.

We’re going to be demanding about policy. We can’t accept austerity policies any more

“The election result opened a new political cycle,” Simona Bonafe, a close Renzi aide who won a seat in the European Parliament, told Reuters.

“We’re going to be demanding about policy. We can’t accept austerity policies any more. We’ll see how we can change them.”

With Italy struggling to pull out of five years of on-off recession and youth unemployment at more than 40 per cent, Renzi has insisted that more budget austerity on its own will simply fuel voter anger and social unrest.

A fast-talking 39-year-old with little obvious affinity with a veteran Brussels dealmaker like Juncker, Renzi has so far said only that the former Luxembourg prime minister who chaired eurozone finance ministers was one of several possible candidates.

While Italy’s economy has been stagnant for more than a decade and its public debt is among the highest in the world, its budget deficit is just within EU limits and it insists it will respect the rules.