Matteo Salvini

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

Salvini has been a hardline Eurosceptic politician, holding a starkly critical view of the European Union, especially of the euro. He opposes illegal immigration into Italy and the EU as well as the EU's management of asylum seekers. He is also considered one of the main leaders of the populist wave in Europe during the 2010s and a member of the neo-nationalist movement, which is a right-wing ideology that emphasizes de-globalization, nativist and protectionist stances.

During his first stint as deputy prime minister, many international political commentators and newspapers, such as The Guardian, The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Huffington Post, characterized him as a strongman and the most influential politician in Italy after the 2018 elections. Salvini condemned the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. He had previously praised Russia's president Vladimir Putin, describing Putin in 2019 as "the best politician and statesman in the world".