Meloni’s ‘salvific’ inconsistencies, explained by Vannacci

To gain a deeper understanding of the Meloni government and its contradictions, consider examining Roberto Vannacci’s programme. It is called “Ideological and Programmatic Basis of Futuro Nazionale for the Italy of the Future 2027–2037”, and is presented as the manifesto of a “pure, vital, identity-based Right”, with four non-negotiable red lines: life from conception, the natural family, Christian identity, and the Roman conception of law. Vannacci’s programme is interesting because it helps us understand where Meloni could have gone and where, instead, she did not go. Let’s start with Europe. Futuro Nazionale describes the Meloni government’s signing of the new Stability Pact as “disastrous”, proposes an Italian veto on the EU’s next multiannual budget, and regards European rearmament and the Green Deal as harmful ideological directives. Meloni, having come to power after years spent denouncing Brussels’ constraints, did the opposite: she negotiated within the framework of European rules, opted for fiscal prudence and built part of Italy’s international credibility on the stability of its public finances.

Then there is Russia. The Vannacciano programme argues that continuing to send weapons to Ukraine is a mistake, emphasises the damage caused by sanctions and calls for a more ‘peacemaking’ stance. Meloni, who before taking office at Palazzo Chigi belonged to a right-wing faction in which admiration for Putin was not exactly a secret, has instead opted for Kyiv, NATO, sanctions, weapons and Atlanticism. The picture becomes even more interesting when we turn to social issues. Futuro Nazionale wants to abolish the specific offence of femicide; it proposes scrapping the Mancino Law; it regards marriage as the only form of partnership and seeks to eliminate civil partnerships; it maintains that ‘abortion is not a right’ and proposes legal recognition of the unborn child. Now compare this right-wing with the one that has actually governed. The Meloni government did not abolish the offence of femicide: it created it, with a law definitively approved in 2025. It did not abolish civil partnerships. It did not repeal Law 194, and Meloni has repeatedly stated that she does not wish to amend it.

This is why Futuro Nazionale’s programme can be read as a sort of control group for the Meloni experiment. It shows what happens when you take the instincts of the Italian right and remove them from the ‘reality check’ imposed by the government: less Europe, less Ukraine, more Russia, more culture war, more sovereignty, more identity-based radicalism. Her opponents criticise Meloni for having remained too far to the right; Vannacci criticises her for not having been far enough to the right. The latter criticism unwittingly contains the most significant compliment.

For Meloni’s great betrayal was to have discovered, whilst in government, that reality is stronger than identity: she betrayed Putin by choosing Kyiv, she betrayed sovereignty by choosing Europe, she betrayed the promise of a break with the past by choosing stability. Vannacci provides a list of what might have been. It is precisely by looking at that list that one better understands the value of what, fortunately, did not come to pass.