Do we like them?

Do we like Matteo Salvini?

Our score: 2 out of 10. A run of his own words against gender theory and surrogacy, plus a Russia-friendly line, and no verified good deeds turned up.

Matteo Salvini is Italy's deputy prime minister, transport minister and leader of the League, the hard-right party he has just been re-elected to run for a fourth time. He's been a fixture of Italian politics for years, and a fixture on this page's worry list for just as long.

The story he's best known for is the 2019 Open Arms standoff. As interior minister he was accused of kidnapping and refusal to perform official duties over the migrant rescue ship; Italy's Court of Cassation rejected prosecutors' appeal on 17 December 2025, making his acquittal final. He wrote on X that defending the borders is not a crime, and the legal question is settled in his favour. Whether it was a decent way to treat people on that boat is a separate question the court didn't answer.

On the harm check, his own words are the problem. At the 2019 World Congress of Families in Verona he told the crowd he would keep fighting 'gender theory' for as long as he lived, and he called surrogacy abominable. That's campaigning against LGBTQ+ families and trans people's recognition, in his own voice, which is what the harm test looks for.

The health side isn't flash either. His party's senators filed a bill in January 2025 to pull Italy out of the World Health Organization, right after Donald Trump announced the US was leaving. ANSA's report didn't quote Salvini himself on it, so we pin it on the League, not on his words, but he leads the party that did it.

Lately he's been cosying up to Moscow's line. In September, after meeting Italian business owners who work in Russia, he told Russian outlets TASS and Vesti the war should end by diplomacy, not by sending weapons, and that he'd like commercial, sports and cultural links restored afterwards. Il Post also reported him reopening the idea of buying Russian gas again once it's over.

The good stuff is where we came up short. The one thing that clearly goes in his favour is the final acquittal, but that's a legal result, not a good deed. We couldn't verify charity work, standing up for others at a cost to himself, or a record of how he treats staff and colleagues, so that's honestly the whole list.