Roberto Vannacci, a former general and MEP for Italy’s right-wing League Party, has stoked controversy by questioning whether Italy should bother purchasing new weapons, given a lack of young Italians ready to wield them.
“We spend €800 billion to rearm, but then who do we send to die at the front? People from gay pride? You tell me who is ready for this sacrifice”, the MEP said.
The controversy over the value of Italy buying new weapons comes as PM Giorgia Meloni seeks to classify a long-delayed €13.5 billion bridge to Sicily as defence infrastructure.
Spending only 1.49 per cent of its GDP on defence in 2024, Italy lags far behind other NATO allies in military spending, making the alliance’s new goal of 5 per cent by 2035 a steep target.
While NATO has said allies can devote 1 per cent of the new 5 per cent goal to infrastructure, the Strait of Messina falls outside Italy’s NATO military corridor, which goes through Italy’s southern Puglia region rather than Sicily.
Even if Italy raises defence spending, its youth is not prepared for combat and was not raised with values of patriotism and sacrifice, Vannacci told a party rally in Puglia’s town of San Marco in Lamis.
“In Tuscany there was recently Gay Pride. Do we send these gentlemen to die at the front? You tell me,” Vannacci said.
According to the former general, even if Italy purchases newer and more weapons, “there is a lack of people who grew up with ideals such as honour, defence of the homeland and contempt for danger”.
Vannacci: “Ci riarmiamo e poi chi mandiamo in guerra? Quelli del gay pride?” pic.twitter.com/D2AfJithra
— DC News (@DNews10443) June 27, 2025
Vannacci made the comments on Wednesday, June 25, which led to a backlash over the following weekend, particularly from the LGBTQ+ community and his party’s political opponents.
Mario Furore, an MEP from the Movimento 5 Stelle, said Vannacci’s comments were “embarrassing and unacceptable”.
Vannacci was insulting entire communities instead of offering solutions, said Furore.
The 56 year-old former paratrooper commander is no stranger to controversy. He rose to fame with a 2023 book Il mondo al contrario, which attracted a wide readership but led to his 11-month suspension from the army on half pay in February 2024.
In the book, he criticised “rules of inclusion and tolerance” imposed on other Italians by ethnic minorities and immigrants, who benefit from unfair “privileges”.
He also wrote “Dear homosexuals, you are not normal, get over it!”
In June 2024, only three months after his suspension from the army, he was elected to the European Parliament with 186,966 votes, the second-highest total of any candidate in Italy.
