On 24 August 2026, Futuro Nazionale published the second part of its policy manifesto. Abortion is not a right. Civil partnerships are abolished. The Ministry of Life, the Natural Family and Identity is established. LGBT content is banned from television for 17 hours out of every 24. Sex change operations for minors become a universal offence.

The timing is no coincidence. August has three characteristics that Vannacci has exploited simultaneously. The media landscape is empty: no budget bill, no parliamentary session, no European dossier to divert attention. The opposition’s reactions are inevitably fragmented and piecemeal, lacking any active central coordination. And Giorgia Meloni is on holiday – or at least it must appear that way, because responding to Vannacci’s programme in August would implicitly mean admitting that this whole business concerns her.

In September, that space would not have existed: the Budget Bill would have overshadowed everything, and the ‘Futuro Nazionale’ programme would have become a mere footnote in an information landscape already saturated with news. In August, it became the agenda.
For the Prime Minister, Vannacci’s programme is not merely a provocation to be dealt with: it is a symptom of a structural problem that has been dragging on for months. Futuro Nazionale has occupied the space on the right that FdI left vacant during its path towards institutional normalisation, and did so at a time when it was most difficult to respond. It is an almost perfect move, and should be recognised as such before analysing its implications.

What Vannacci achieved and what he complicated

To understand Meloni’s dilemma, one must start with the path that FdI was following – a path that Vannacci’s programme has suddenly made more complicated. Giorgia Meloni was succeeding in something that had seemed impossible until a few years ago: transforming Fratelli d’Italia from a post-Missino party – perceived as unpalatable by much of the European establishment – into a stable and credible governing force. The model was that of an institutionalised right – not Forza Italia, which had paid for that transformation with the loss of its identity, but a right that retained a recognisable identity whilst becoming a reliable partner for Brussels, Washington and the markets.

This project required some specific concessions. The most costly, in terms of national identity, was Ukraine. Meloni has supported Kyiv with a consistency that was by no means a given for a right-wing government; she has withstood internal pressure from Salvini and maintained an Atlanticist stance even when Trump was pushing in the opposite direction. That consistency has earned her a genuine reputation in Europe – not one based on propaganda, but one that can be verified by the facts.

The cost of those concessions was the gradual hollowing out of the political space on the right. Previously, Salvini had occupied that position – championing radical identitarianism as an alternative to the ruling right. Then Salvini entered government, made concessions of his own, and that space became available once more. Vannacci found it open and occupied it with a precision that anyone who studies political communication cannot fail to recognise.

The trap is already in place, and it’s working even now

The August programme is not an election manifesto in the traditional sense of the term. It is a move to establish an identity, designed to achieve two simultaneous effects: to retain the loyalty of those already within Futuro Nazionale and to set a trap for those on the outside – starting with Meloni.
The most immediate risk for Meloni is not a split with Vannacci (which is highly unlikely to happen, at least for now), but rather being drawn into a chase. Within the centre-right, there is a persistent belief – one that Palazzo Chigi has not yet explicitly articulated publicly – that Vannacci is, objectively speaking, playing into the hands of the left. Dividing the front, wearing Meloni down with daily identity-based distinctions, making the coalition appear extremist even before the elections begin – the result of this dynamic, regardless of the general’s intentions, is a weaker centre-right. This is the position that Forza Italia has been expressing for months with less hesitation than the others: Occhiuto has been among the most outspoken in saying that Vannacci must be opposed, not included.

The temptation to stake a claim on the political right through propaganda-driven manoeuvres is, however, very real, and has already become apparent. The stance on Ceuta – hardline and identity-based – was precisely this: an attempt to occupy a space that now belongs to Vannacci, using the rhetoric of the pre-government right rather than that of the governing right. It is a losing strategy for a structural reason: on those issues, Vannacci is more radical, more consistent and more credible to that electorate. And above all, he has nothing to lose by taking very radical positions: after all, he is not the one in government.

The case of Ukraine reveals, all the more clearly, the depth of the problem. On 24 August – the very day that Futuro Nazionale published its manifesto – a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing was held in Kyiv. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham authorised the sharing of classified Storm Shadow missile projects with Kyiv. Macron announced military exercises by the multinational force in October and November. Italy announced the supply of generators. But as Linkiesta has pieced together, Italy’s commitment was in fact far more substantial: the government had tacitly agreed to send new anti-missile equipment, but chose not to announce this publicly. The reason, according to journalistic accounts, was clear: to avoid provoking Vannacci and to avoid an outright row with Salvini.

It is the paradox of a government that has made the communication of its ‘successes’ a mantra. In this case, Meloni acts like the responsible right-winger in practice, but cannot say so. Vannacci acts like the irresponsible right-winger in his words, and shouts it from the rooftops. But it is the one who speaks, not the one who remains silent, who controls the narrative. And Meloni, for fear of reactions within the coalition, has chosen to remain silent on a decision that has already been taken, sacrificing her international image on the altar of internal balance. Vannacci is not only influencing Meloni’s future decisions: he is already influencing how she communicates on decisions that have already been taken.

Who has the most to lose?

The question at the heart of Meloni’s autumn dilemma is this: who has the most to lose in the showdown with Vannacci?
The answer is paradoxical. Meloni leads the coalition’s largest party: she holds Palazzo Chigi, she has European credibility, she enjoys public support. She is the most powerful figure in the Italian centre-right. And that is precisely why she is the most vulnerable: she has built a five-year plan to normalise FdI that is worth far more than a single parliamentary term. Any scenario – an alliance, an electoral defeat, internal strife – puts that plan at risk in different but equally serious ways.

Futuro Nazionale has adopted the opposite stance. From within the government, it wears it down from the inside – every compromise becomes proof of FdI’s betrayal of its identity, every concession becomes ammunition. Outside the government, it remains the only force that has never governed, that has never given in on anything, that can stand in the next election with a clean slate and a spotless narrative. It is a structural win-win: Vannacci stands to gain in any scenario. Meloni stands to lose in all of them.
But of the two scenarios available to Vannacci, the one that suits him best – pure opposition, the anti-establishment narrative intact – is also the one that does Meloni the least harm. A Vannacci in opposition is a manageable problem. A Vannacci in government is a problem that Meloni brings into her own house every day, forcing her into daily internal power struggles and compromises that are difficult to manage. If the asymmetry cannot be eliminated, one can at least choose its least costly form. And that form is to keep him out.

Meloni knows how to negotiate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right thing to do

The most advantageous strategy for Meloni is not to negotiate: it is to wait. To ensure that Vannacci wears himself out, making his exclusion seem natural, almost inevitable. Not an explicit break, not a head-on clash: a gradual loss of relevance that does not even require a formal decision.

Meanwhile, the framing of this as ‘playing into the hands of the left’ serves precisely to create the narrative conditions within which that exclusion appears justified. It is not an attack on Vannacci’s values – that would be political suicide with regard to that section of the FdI electorate which shares those values. It is an attack on his political usefulness: a party that divides the centre-right and objectively benefits the opposition does not deserve to be part of the coalition, regardless of what it thinks about abortion or civil partnerships. Vannacci already has his counter-narrative ready – ‘they’re afraid’ – but Meloni needs to keep that narrative alive to prevent the alliance from appearing to be the only viable option.

The problem is the variable she cannot control: the cohesion of the centre-left. The broad coalition is doing everything it can to split apart – between Conte’s headlong rushes, the PD’s irrelevance and the structural tensions running through it. But politics is rarely an exact science, and it is far from certain that the split will occur at the right moment. Meloni, who is heading into autumn facing the dilemma of all dilemmas, knows that there are too many variables beyond her control for her to be able to afford to wait indefinitely.