The Remigration Question: Italy and Europe’s Battle Over Migration and Belonging
‘Let’s not resign ourselves to a half-breed society.’ These are the words of Roberto Vannacci, a former army general who has rapidly become one of the most controversial figures of Italy’s radical right. If such remarks previously reflected political statements of intense provocation, they now accompany the increasingly concrete political project of remigration.
The recent victory of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt has brought the issue of ‘remigration’—defined as the systematic, large-scale repatriation of foreign nationals—back to the forefront of the European political debate. In Italy, Vannacci’s party Futuro Nazionale’s publications include very similar proposals. In fact, the group and its leader have stated intention to reduce the percentage of foreigners in Italy to a level that is ‘extremely low without any social impact’, setting an ideal threshold of 4% compared to the current 9.4%.
The significance of this proposition extends beyond an analysis of Vannaci’s political persona. The question of remigration in fact presents itself in the context of a broader European political shift in which migration is inseparable from matters from national identity, economic insecurity, and social belonging. The issue therefore is not simply whether remigration is practically executable, but what its increasing popularity reveals about political tensions and cultural belonging within contemporary Europe.
On the note of rapid shifts, Vannacci’s rise has been particularly fast-paced. is Futuro Nazionale is in fact Italy’s current fourth-most-popular party just seven months after its launch. Meanwhile, Vannacci has openly opposed the EU’s pursuit of further political integration in favor of defending countries' cultural identities, tendencies that have prompted criticism like former Prime Minister Mario Monti’s accusations of using ‘fascist rhetoric’. His role is also especially significant for Giorgia Meloni, who has enjoyed a particular degree of political stability, distinguishing her from her predecessors. While her Brothers of Italy remains the country’s largest party, in recent months, the political landscape has shifted with the emergence of a challenger – not from the left or the centre, but from someone who is even further to the right than Meloni.
Since its launch in February, Futuro Nazionale has risen to about 8% in the polls. Vannacci officially entered the political scene in 2023 after self-publishing a book filled with racism, homophobia, Islamophobia and antisemitism. The subsequent backlash cost him his army job, but catalyzed his notoriety, which he then capitalized to get elected as an MEP for the League in 2024 before eventually leaving the bloc to assert leadership and establish his own party.
Remigration, although gaining political momentum, is not the singular image attesting to Futuro Nazionale’s vision. Specifically, the party has recently published manifestos declaring that ‘abortion is not a right’ and calling for gay people to be banned from TV between 6am and 11pm so children aren’t exposed to what it describes as ‘homosexualist’ content, alongside ideas of introducing military education in all high schools. Altogether, these positions collocate remigration within the ample attempt to redefine Italian identity and social order, promoting a distinctively conservative vision of culture and belonging.
Among the many propositions, it is vital to recognise how often political rhetoric is considerably more immediate than the realities it promises. Behind Vannaci’s seemingly simple pursuit of reduced foreign populations lies the more layered question of what remigration would actually imply for Italy. An adequate answer can firstly refer to costs, as to induce over 3 million non-EU citizens to voluntarily leave Italy, compensating them for the loss of household income over their remaining working lives would amount to more than 300 billion euros, equivalent to around £254,175,000 (15% of Italy’s GDP).
Macroeconomic perspectives and considerations, however, extend well beyond the initial cost; the departure of even 1.5 million workers would result in an annual loss of value added of up to 108 billion euros, risking the paralysis of entire sectors. The agricultural sector for once is a clear example as large-scale departures of non-EU-workers, many of whom work as farm laborers, could drastically disrupt production chains. Consequently, Futuro Nazionale proposes to alleviate such losses by encouraging abroad workers of Italian origins to return, but even this attempt would place a further burden on public finances.
Lastly, the practical difficulties of repatriation have already pushed Meloni’s government towards more controversial measures, including a 2026 proposal to reward lawyers for successfully assisting their immigrant clients’ voluntary return—a scheme critics compared to a ‘wild west-style bounty’. Just as radically, Vannacci’s continued emphasis on expanding Italy’s detention centres remains insufficient to overcome the diplomatic and legal complications surrounding repatriation.
Yet, the ‘Remigrazione and Riconquista’ initiative proposed by Futuro Nazionale, advocating for migrants’ expulsion and incentivising voluntary returns, gathered approximately 150,000 signatures—three times the threshold required for submission to Parliament, in just six months. This momentum and figures thus confirm a broader conceptual tendency to frame migrants and immigration as the causes of long-rooted socioeconomic anxieties. Amid concerns over security, demographic decline and stagnant wages, in Italy, as elsewhere, immigrants are serving as the ideal scapegoat for everything that is going wrong.
Thus, a more revealing question refers to why such a stark policy initiative, despite its economic and practical limitations, has gained popularity in the first place. The answer extends beyond Italy, where the remigration debate reflects a broader political shift accompanying the rise of the far right across Europe. In Britain, Reform UK increased its vote share from 2% in 2019, when it stood as the Brexit Party, to 14% in the 2024 general election, with immigration and opposition to the political establishment central to its appeal. France offers an even longer history of this transition: the National Front’s gradual dédiabolisation under Marine Le Pen transformed a party historically associated with the political fringes into a major force in French politics. As introduced, in Germany, the success of the AfD centers the discussion directly back to remigration. These parties differ significantly in their histories and contexts, yet their current tendencies similarly reveal how questions of migration and national identity are, without a doubt, among the central forces shaping the direction of European politics.
The appeal of far-right populism then particularly derives from its ability to transform diverse political anxieties into compelling narratives, often structured around an ‘in-group and an out-group – the nation versus immigrants, judges, ‘woke elites’, whoever'. Then, as the far right grows electorally, their principles receive greater media exposure and increasingly enter mainstream political debates. The employment of populism can thus culminate in the social normalisation of previously marginal ideas and a consequential greater hostility towards specific groups. The idea of remigration perfectly fits this logic: if migration is constantly presented as a problem, remigration becomes its intuitive reversal.
Migration clearly represents a matter where preoccupations with economic hardship, sovereignty and cultural identities converge; the question of remigration is then not simply about who European countries should remove but is very telling of our capacity to preserve critical judgement and awareness against the growing reality of demagoguery. If complex societal anxieties are associated with simple culprits and immediate solutions, a further failure is ceasing to question who, and what, we are being taught to blame.
Image courtesy of the European Parliament via Wikimedia Commons, ©2024. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
