{"id":39194,"date":"2026-08-10T03:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/39194\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T03:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:57:18","slug":"a-new-rival-is-forcing-italys-meloni-back-to-her-far-right-roots-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/39194\/","title":{"rendered":"A new rival is forcing Italy\u2019s Meloni back to her far-right roots \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThere is no doubt that there is concern about containing the competition from National Future,\u201d said Marco Tarchi, a leading right-wing political scientist. \u201cIt all boils down to a sharpening of tone. The issues \u2014 security, immigration, identity \u2014 remain the same as before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During the electoral campaign that brought her to power in 2022, Meloni promised to crack down on illegal migration by putting in place a naval blockade off Italy\u2019s coast. Though that project never ultimately happened, Meloni\u2019s government did open detention hubs in Albania to house migrants while their asylum applications are processed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Vannacci, who is campaigning on security and a hard line on immigration, is calling for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/far-right-general-upends-italian-politics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a more radical solution<\/a>: \u201cremigration\u201d \u2014 a yet-to-be-detailed plan to encourage migrants to return to their countries of origin.<\/p>\n<p>The crisis in Ceuta, during which tens of thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave and nearly 100 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/100-people-died-during-ceuta-border-rush-says-ceuta-leader-2026-08-06\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">died<\/a>, provided Meloni with an opportunity to show that fighting irregular migration remains an absolute priority for her government. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2285674244-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8851567\"  \/>Roberto Vannacci sings the national anthem during a rally in Genoa, Italy on July 11, 2026. | Emanuela Zampa\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p>Meloni\u2019s reaction was \u201cpurely the result of domestic political calculations,\u201d said Giorgio Gori, a member of the European Parliament from the left-wing Democratic Party. The Italian prime minister is trying to secure her electorate \u201cby showing that she is loyal to the right-wing slogan and propaganda on migration and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Giovanni Orsina, director of the political science department at Rome\u2019s Luiss Guido Carli University, Meloni\u2019s priority at this stage is \u201cthat the Brothers of Italy [Meloni\u2019s party] doesn\u2019t start losing votes too\u201d \u2014 in preparation for a potential alliance with Vannacci before or after next year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere is no doubt that there is concern about containing the competition from National Future,\u201d said Marco Tarchi,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1275,5703,25814,24899,448,1287,1778,1172,5501,319,320,3366,323,41,325,1214,1155,328,5,3788,5504,25815,332,1140,1864,5506,17170,8448,2258,338,339,5507,148,2196,341,25398],"class_list":["post-39194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-airports","tag-albania","tag-asylum","tag-borders","tag-china","tag-competition","tag-crisis","tag-defense","tag-democratic-party","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-far-right","tag-foreign-policy","tag-france","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-immigration","tag-iran","tag-italian-politics","tag-italy","tag-matteo-salvini","tag-meps","tag-mette-frederiksen","tag-migration","tag-military","tag-morocco","tag-nicola-procaccini","tag-north-korea","tag-populism","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-sergio-mattarella","tag-silvio-berlusconi","tag-spain","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-visas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}