Matteo Salvini

Matteo Salvini (born 9 March 1973) is an Italian politician. He has served as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport since 2022. He has been the Federal Secretary of Italy's Lega party since 2013 and an Italian senator since 2018. He represented Northwestern Italy in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2018.

Salvini has strong views against the European Union and the euro. He has spoken out against illegal immigration into Italy and how the EU handles asylum seekers. He is seen as a key figure in the populist movement in Europe during the 2010s. He supports ideas like de-globalization, focusing on nativist and protectionist policies.

After the 2018 elections, many international news sources described him as a powerful leader in Italy. He spoke out against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Earlier, in 2019, he had praised Russia's president Vladimir Putin.

Early life

Matteo Salvini was born in Milan in 1973. His father was a business executive, and his mother stayed home. When he was 12 years old, in 1985, he appeared on a game show called Doppio slalom. This was the Italian version of Blockbusters, hosted by Corrado Tedeschi on Canale 5.

Later, when he was 20 years old in 1993, he was on another show, Il pranzo è servito, hosted by Davide Mengacci on Rete 4.

Salvini went to the Classical Lyceum "Alessandro Manzoni" in Milan. He then studied at the University of Milan. He first studied political science and later switched to history. However, he stopped his studies to begin his political career and did not finish his degree.

As a teenager, Salvini visited a left-wing self-managed social centre called Leoncavallo.

Early political career

Matteo Salvini started his political career in 1990 when he joined the Lega Nord, a group focused on regional interests. He worked with the group's youth branch and became involved in local politics in Milan, serving on the city council from 1993 to 2012.

In 2004, Salvini was elected to the European Parliament to represent the North-West region. He served there until 2006, then returned to local government in Milan. He was elected again to the European Parliament in 2009 and took on several roles, including working with committees focused on culture, education, and international relations. Salvini stayed active in both European and Italian politics over the next several years.

Federal Secretary of Lega Nord

Main article: Leadership of Matteo Salvini

In September 2013, Roberto Maroni, the leader of Lega Nord and Salvini's mentor, said he would leave his leadership role. Soon after, Salvini said he wanted to be the new leader. A meeting was set for mid-December, and five candidates entered the race: Umberto Bossi, Giacomo Stucchi, Manes Bernardini, Roberto Stefanazzi, and Salvini. Only Bossi and Salvini collected enough signatures from party members to run, and Salvini gathered four times as many signatures as Bossi.

On December 7, 2013, Salvini won the leadership vote with 82% of the support, with help from Roberto Maroni and many senior party members, including Flavio Tosi, who had decided not to run. A week later, his leadership was confirmed by the party's meeting in Turin. Under Salvini, the party took a strong stand against the European Union, especially against the euro. Before the 2014 European Parliament election, Salvini worked with Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom.

In April 2014, Salvini introduced a new party logo for the European Parliament election, replacing "Padania" with "No more Euro" to show the party's wish to leave the Eurozone. The party included candidates from other groups that also wanted to leave the euro or wanted more local control.

In the European Parliament election, the party got 6.2% of the vote and won 5 seats. The party did well in regions like Veneto and Lombardy. After the election, the party approved Salvini's plans for a flat tax and creating a sister party in central and southern Italy and the islands. In December, the sister party for southern Italy, Us with Salvini, was started.

The party's popularity kept growing, and polls in December 2014 showed Salvini's approval rating rising from 28% to 33%, making him a stronger force in Italian politics.

On February 28, 2015, Salvini led a protest in Rome against illegal immigration.

In March 2015, after disagreements between Flavio Tosi and Luca Zaia over candidates for an upcoming regional election in Veneto, Tosi was removed from his position and kicked out of the party. Despite internal conflicts, the 2015 regional elections were successful for the party, especially in Veneto, where Luca Zaia won with 50.1% of the vote. The party also did well in Liguria, Tuscany, the Marche, and Umbria.

After the 2016 local elections, where the party did worse than expected in Lombardy but well in Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany, Salvini faced criticism from some party members who disagreed with the party's focus on the south and its shift to the right.

In the lead-up to the 2017 leadership election, Salvini aimed to become the leader of the centre-right and possibly change the party's name by dropping "Northern". Some party members chose not to challenge him, but Gianni Fava, a regional minister in Lombardy, ran, representing the party’s federalist and separatist views.

2018 general election

See also: 2018 Italian government formation

On December 21, 2017, Salvini introduced the new logo for the Northern League for the 2018 general election. For the first time, the party ran nationwide, without the word "Northern" on its logo.

The League became the third-largest party in Italy with 17.4% of the vote. It won most of its votes in the north, including 32.2% in Veneto, 28.0% in Lombardy, 26.7% in Trentino, 25.8% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and 22.6% in Piedmont. It also gained support in central Italy, parts of the south, and Sardinia. The League became the leading party in the centre-right coalition, and the centre-right won the most seats in Parliament, but no group had a majority, leading to a hung parliament.

After the election, both Salvini and the leader of the Five Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, said they should form the new government because they led the largest party and coalition.

On March 24, the centre-right coalition and the Five Star Movement agreed on who would be the presidents of the houses of Parliament, Roberto Fico of M5S for the Chamber and Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati of Forza Italia for the Senate.

On May 7, President Mattarella held more talks to form a government, but no agreement was reached. The Five Star Movement refused to join the centre-right coalition, the Democratic Party refused to join either group, and the League refused to join a government with the Five Star Movement without Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, which the Five Star Movement also refused.

President Mattarella said he would soon appoint a "neutral government" to take over from the current government. He suggested holding an early election in July, which would be the first summer election in Italy. The League and the Five Star Movement agreed to hold new elections on July 8, but other parties rejected this.

On May 9, after rumors, Salvini and Di Maio asked President Mattarella for more time to agree on a government. That evening, Silvio Berlusconi said Forza Italia would not support a government of the Five Star Movement and the League, but would keep the centre-right alliance open.

On May 13, the Five Star Movement and the League agreed in principle on a government plan but couldn’t agree on the prime minister. They met with Mattarella on May 14 to discuss forming a new government.

On May 21, 2018, Di Maio and Salvini proposed Giuseppe Conte for the role of Prime Minister, despite concerns from President Mattarella. On May 23, Conte was invited to the Quirinal Palace to receive the presidential mandate to form a new cabinet. In his statement after the appointment, Conte said he would be the "defense lawyer of the Italian people".

However, on May 27, Conte withdrew from the role due to conflicts between Salvini and President Mattarella. Salvini had proposed Paolo Savona as Minister of Economy and Finances, but Mattarella strongly opposed him. In his speech after Conte’s resignation, Mattarella said the two parties wanted to take Italy out of the Eurozone, and as the protector of the Italian Constitution and the country’s stability, he could not allow this.

The next day, Mattarella gave Carlo Cottarelli the task of forming a new government. On May 28, the Democratic Party said it would not vote for Cottarelli, while the Five Star Movement and the centre-right parties announced their vote against.

Cottarelli was expected to submit his list of ministers for approval to President Mattarella on May 29. However, on May 29 and 30, he only held informal talks with the President, waiting for the formation of a "political government". Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio said they were willing to restart negotiations to form a political government; Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, supported this initiative. On May 31, the Five Star Movement and the Lega Nord agreed on the new government, with Giuseppe Conte as its head, and without Paolo Savona as finance minister (who would become Minister of European Affairs instead).

Party's developments

Along with increasing membership in the north, in 2018 the party started recruiting members in the centre and south under the name "League for Salvini Premier," replacing the Us with Salvini movement. The LSP might eventually replace both the LN and NcS, merging them into one. Meanwhile, the parties’ joint parliamentary groups were named "League–Salvini Premier" in the Chamber and "League–Salvini Premier–Sardinian Action Party" in the Senate.

On February 22, 2019, an Italian magazine published an investigation about a funding scheme involving the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. The money was allegedly to fund the League’s European election campaign. Italian authorities are investigating this matter.

The case gained attention in July 2019 when BuzzFeed published recordings and transcripts of a meeting involving Salvini’s public relations officer and Russian agents close to Vladimir Putin. The meeting discussed providing the League with $65 million in illegal funding from the Russian state. This became part of a larger investigation into the League’s finances.

In August 2019, Italy’s highest court ordered Salvini’s party to repay 49 million euros of illegally acquired taxpayer funding to the Italian state.

During the summer of 2019, Salvini visited several public beaches to campaign, which was unusual for an Italian politician.

In September 2022, many League committees wanted to call a Federal Congress to replace Salvini as Secretary. In October, the party founder Umberto Bossi announced the creation of the "Northern Committee" to regain trust from voters. Many politicians within the party joined this faction, which is challenging Salvini.

European politics

Leading up to the 2019 European Parliament election, Salvini worked to create a pan-European alliance of nationalist political parties, and he continued these efforts after the election. He founded the European Alliance of Peoples and Nations on April 8, 2019. In the European elections in Italy, the League won more than 34% of the vote for the first time in a nationwide election, strengthening Salvini’s position in Italy. Overall, the European coalition Identity and Democracy, which includes the Lega, became the fifth-largest group in the newly elected European Parliament.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister (2018–2019)

See also: Conte I Cabinet

On June 1, 2018, Matteo Salvini became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of Italy. His main goal was to reduce the number of people entering Italy without permission. Soon after he started, many news reports said Salvini became very powerful and used social media effectively.

Salvini made strong statements about immigration. He said a nearby country was sending people who might cause trouble to Italy, which led to disagreements between the two countries. He also decided that Italian ports would not allow ships carrying migrants to stop, even when asked by groups helping these people. This caused difficult situations, like when a ship with over 600 migrants was not allowed to dock in Italy or nearby Malta, until another country agreed to let them in. Salvini said Italy would no longer accept ships with migrants and that other countries should handle them.

Later, Salvini suggested counting people from certain groups living in Italy, but this idea was stopped because it broke Italy's rules. In September 2018, new rules called the "Salvini Decree" were approved, making it harder for migrants to stay in Italy and easier to send them away. These rules also changed how people asking for safety were treated.

In June 2019, a ship picked up migrants near Libya but was not allowed to stop in Italy. The ship's captain decided to dock anyway because the people on board were very tired. This led to some arguments, but the captain was later allowed to go free after a court said she did nothing wrong.

In August 2019, Salvini tried to remove the Prime Minister by saying the government was not working well. However, this plan did not work, and a new government was formed with a different party.

Leader of the opposition (2019–2021)

After a new government was formed, Salvini spoke out against its ideas about immigration. When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, he also disagreed with the plans to help the economy using a special tool from Europe called the European Stability Mechanism.

Draghi government (2021–2022)

See also: Draghi Cabinet

In February 2021, Salvini agreed to join a government led by Mario Draghi. This government had many different parties, even though Draghi strongly supported Europe. One right-wing party, Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, chose not to join and became the main opposition party.

Later in October 2021, Salvini talked about local elections. He said the results were not good and that splitting into smaller groups made things worse. He also mentioned that Brothers of Italy should stay as the opposition.

Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister (2022–present)

See also: Meloni Cabinet

On 22 October 2022, Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy party, became Italy's first female prime minister. At the same time, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Lega party, became deputy prime minister. This government was Italy's most right-wing since World War II and included members from the party led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

In April 2024, a vote to remove Salvini from his position failed. In January 2026, Salvini met with a British activist named Tommy Robinson. Salvini said he could meet with anyone to talk about shared goals, even if some people disagreed.

Legal issues

Matteo Salvini had some legal problems for his work as a minister about helping migrants, but they all ended well for him.

In February 2020, Salvini was to go to court for not letting a ship called Gregoretti stop at Augusta, Sicily. A judge decided he did not do anything wrong, and the case ended.

Another case started in July 2020 about stopping a different ship, the Open Arms, in 2019. In December 2024, a court said Salvini did not do anything wrong by keeping migrants on the ship.

Other cases, like one where Salvini was said to have spoken badly about an activist, were also ended with no problems for him.

Political views

Matteo Salvini has strong opinions on many issues. He has been very critical of the European Union (EU) and the euro currency. He is against illegal immigration into Italy and has spoken out about helping young Italians have families.

In foreign policy, Salvini has taken many different stances. He opposed Turkey joining the EU and criticized Saudi Arabia for how it treats women. He also supported better ties with countries like Morocco and Israel. He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Personal life

Matteo Salvini married Fabrizia Ieluzzi, a journalist, in 2001, and they had a child in 2003. After his divorce, he had another daughter with his partner Giulia Martinelli in 2012. He later dated popular TV host Elisa Isoardi for nearly three years before they split in 2018. As of 2019, Salvini is engaged to Francesca Verdini, the daughter of politician Denis Verdini. His supporters call him "The Captain."

Salvini is a Roman Catholic and lives in Milan, where he supports the local football club AC Milan.

Electoral history