Italy’s first Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will not take place until 2027, after Italy’s next parliamentary election, organisers have confirmed. Under current constitutional rules, the vote is expected by autumn 2027, unless early elections are called.
The decision means the Italian edition of the flagship US conservative gathering will be launched only once the next government is in place, rather than during the election campaign.
Initial reports, based on announcements published on CPAC’s social media channels and widely picked up by the Italian press, had suggested that the conference itself would debut in Rome in early September. That timeline has now been clarified. Writing in the Italian daily il Giornale on August 6, Francesco Giubilei, president of the Tatarella Foundation and a CPAC Italy organiser, said the full conference had instead been scheduled for after the next general election.
Rather than hosting the inaugural CPAC Italy, Rome is due to stage a preparatory summit from September 4-6. The event is due to bring together senior CPAC officials from the United States, leading figures from Italy’s centre-right and conservative politicians from across Europe to discuss the structure, programme and long-term organisation of the future conference. A press conference and a closed-door dinner are planned for September 6, with invitations sent to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani.
According to Giubilei, delaying the full event until after the election is intended to establish CPAC Italy as a permanent international forum rather than an initiative overshadowed by domestic electoral politics.
Founded in 1974 by the American Conservative Union, CPAC has evolved from a US political conference into one of the world’s most influential gatherings of conservative, centre-right and sovereigntist leaders. Over the past decade, it has expanded internationally with editions in countries including Japan, Australia, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea. In Europe, though, its presence has grown since 2022.
Since then, Budapest has hosted CPAC every year, turning Hungary into the movement’s principal European hub. Organised in close cooperation with Viktor Orbán’s government, the annual conferences became a key meeting point for European conservatives and Republican politicians from the United States, strengthening ties between American conservatives and Europe’s sovereigntist parties. The most recent Budapest edition was held on March 21, 2026, three weeks before the Hungarian general election.
CPAC has also expanded to Poland, where it staged a first conference in May 2025, and to the United Kingdom, which hosted a first London edition in July 2026, reflecting its ambition to build a permanent transatlantic conservative network. Despite the election of Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government in 2022, Italy had never hosted a full CPAC conference, though CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp had pressed for an Italian edition since February 2025.
That may now be changing. Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s general election on April 12, 2026, has cast uncertainty over Budapest’s future role within the organisation. Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar has said his government will no longer use public funds to support CPAC or other partisan international political events, arguing that such financing under the previous administration was inappropriate. He added that CPAC remained welcome in Budapest provided it was not paid for with Hungarian taxpayers’ money. Without the political backing that helped establish Budapest as CPAC’s European base, Italy has emerged as a potential alternative location for the conference’s future expansion.
Italy’s emergence as a possible new European base for CPAC is far from guaranteed, though. The Italian Government’s decision to move forward with hosting the conference marks a shift from its previous position. In December 2025, it emerged that Rome had rejected an earlier proposal from CPAC organisers to host the event in Italy in 2026.
Sources within Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) told Brussels Signal at the time that the decision was driven by broader geopolitical considerations, with the government seeking to preserve a balance between the Trump administration in Washington and European capitals amid growing transatlantic tensions. The formal objection, reported by the Italian daily La Repubblica, concerned a guest list the party feared was too radical.
Meloni was reportedly concerned about presenting Italy as the European hub of the MAGA movement at a time when she was trying to position herself as a bridge between Washington and Brussels rather than as the leader of a specifically Trump-aligned political camp.
The cautious approach was also reflected in other decisions involving figures associated with the American conservative movement, including the controversy surrounding plans by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to establish a sovereigntist political training centre at the Certosa di Trisulti monastery near Collepardo, in Frosinone province, central Italy. An Italian court ruling in June 2026 confirmed the site would remain under State control. The difficulties faced by that project reinforced the perception that the Italian Government was wary of allowing Italy to become a centre for a broader US-style populist conservative network.
The political context became even more complicated as relations between Meloni and Trump grew more tense. Once regarded as one of the US President’s closest partners in Europe, the Italian Prime Minister faced criticism from Trump over issues including European defence, Iran and broader foreign policy questions.
The tensions led Meloni to publicly reject the idea that her relationship with Washington was based on personal proximity, stressing that Italy’s foreign policy would continue to balance its alliance with the United States with its role inside the European Union.
The future of CPAC Italy will therefore depend not only on the ambitions of organisers, but also on Rome’s diplomatic calculations. For CPAC, Italy represents a potential new European centre after Budapest. For Meloni’s government, though, hosting a conference closely associated with Trump-aligned conservatives requires balancing relations with Washington while maintaining Italy’s credibility among European partners.
If the project goes ahead as planned, the 2027 conference would mark the first permanent CPAC hosted in one of the European Union’s founding member states, potentially shifting the centre of gravity of the transatlantic conservative movement from Budapest to Rome.
