In 1998, a young Giorgia Meloni organized the first Atreju festival for Azione Giovani, the youth organization of Italy’s then-largest post-fascist party, Alleanza Nazionale (AN). Atreju has taken place every year since, barring 2020 due to COVID-19, and has undergone several transformations. Much of its day-to-day proceedings will look familiar to political observers: at times it can look like a party conference or a political festival. Despite this, it seems surprisingly hard to pin down exactly what Atreju is. English-language reporting refers to it as a “festival,” a “gathering,” or a “party.” In a promotional video asking Atreju attendees describe the event in one word, they offer vaguer contributions: “community,” “debate,” “tradition.”
The first Atreju gatherings were mixed affairs; they featured debates and talks with ministers and AN leaders, but were mainly youth festivals, punctuated by energetic evening concerts of “identity music,” where attendees put up Roman salutes and chanted Mussolini-era fascist slogans. In the years since, the event has become bigger, longer, and more professional; foreign Prime Ministers, domestic opposition figures, and right-wing thought leaders frequently make appearances.
Atreju offers a rare insight into how far-right populist parties interact with their supporters and negotiate the tension between their undemocratic party structures and their highly mobilized supporters.
This evolution has turned Atreju into a hybridized event, one that combines the elements of different types of political gatherings and leverages them towards unique strategic ends. It offers a rare insight into how far-right populist parties interact with their supporters and negotiate the tension between their rigidly hierarchical, undemocratic party structures and their highly mobilized supporters. Atreju does not offer party members any chances to substantively participate in its proceedings. Instead, attendees are offered an experience that simultaneously projects fun, strength, and community.
Characterizing Atreju
Youth Festival?
Officially, Atreju is a highly professionalized youth festival. The heirs of Italy’s postwar neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) party have migrated between organizations, but each iteration has retained a stable, continuous youth organization, tasked with organizing each Atreju. Today, the group in charge is Gioventù Nazionale, the youth wing of the governing Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) party.
From this perspective, it is easy to see a lot of continuity from Atreju’s earliest forms to today. Then and now, the event combines serious political discussion with energetic cultural displays. Young attendees continue to be very active during talks, debates, and forums. They often boo opposing speakers; in 2019, they sang for Viktor Orbán. Atreju’s youth have always been defined by their sardonic and ironic humor, asking guests to condemn non-existent crimes, making solidarity speeches for fake minorities, and signing joke petitions.
The symbolism at Atreju reflects the history of Italy’s far-right youth. “Atreju” is the name of the protagonist in the science-fiction novel The Neverending Story, who fights against “the Nothing,” an evil entity who has taken power due to the apathy and hopelessness of the people. This appeal to science-fiction places Atreju in the lineage of the MSI’s “Hobbit camps” of the late 1970s, where neo-fascist youth sought to reappropriate the hippy culture of the Left by organizing festivals populated with fantasy, Nordic and Celtic symbols, makeshift art exhibitions, debates, and lots of live music from fascist folk bands. The Italian far right—and Meloni in particular—have long loved Tolkien and employed dystopian science-fiction in service of their anti-modernist and traditionalist messages.
The symbolism at Atreju reflects the history of Italy’s far-right youth.
Music remains one of the most important parts of Atreju. A main concert is scheduled every year. In the past, bands associated with the party would headline, often using the opportunity to make shocking, headline-grabbing statements. In 2007, the leader of a smaller far-right group Terza Posizione was invited to perform with his band and dedicated a song to Mussolini. With professionalization, the main stage no longer hosts explicitly fascist artists; organizers have been able to attract more mainstream musicians without explicit political allegiances. Still, more hardline supporters retreat to fringe events near the old MSI headquarters with identity rock and fascist salutes.
Atreju increasingly looks nothing like a youth festival; indeed, professional-ization has nearly pushed the youth out altogether.
Despite this, Atreju increasingly looks nothing like a youth festival; indeed, professionalization has nearly pushed the youth out altogether. This transformation began in 2006, when AN leader Gianfranco Fini took greater control over the event as part of his project to mainstream the party. That year, Atreju became the subject of significant controversy as Fini invited the leader of the Communist Party, Fausto Bertinotti, to debate. Atreju thereafter became a national event with media presence. Atreju’s daily schedules are now filled with book presentations, forums on policy issues, speeches, and interviews. As one publication put it: “there is decidedly less joking in Atreju today.”
The “village” constructed for it no longer appeals to energetic, radicalized kids; it looks more like a Christmas market. The most recent Atreju, in December 2024, featured Santa Claus, a nativity scene with real animals, an ice skating rink, and food stalls. No longer do youth organizations discuss strategy and commemorate old party members; while it remains a highly nostalgic affair, it is party leaders who speak about Atreju’s history. In fact, the event’s promotional material does not mention the youth group at all!
Party Conference?
While Atreju’s youth roots still influence its overall form, its contemporary functions better resemble a standard party conference or congress. Speaking events signal the FdI’s most salient policy concerns and provide a stage for prominent and up-and-coming party leaders. As Giorgia Meloni’s sister Arianna has received more responsibilities within the party, her Atreju appearances have become more important: in 2024, she joined a main stage debate on bullying against women, the most important event of the first day. Other events put FdI ministers in conversation with business leaders, including the CEOs of major Italian firms like Leonardo and Terna, and the chief economist of Italy’s largest bank. The political climax of the event is Giorgia Meloni’s speech, listing the party’s achievements.
Atreju‘s contemporary functions better resemble a standard party conference or congress, though these similarities are shallow.
Inter-factional debate is also present. Meloni has long portrayed Atreju as a meeting place for all Italian conservative factions, mainstream and extreme. FdI members, other right-wing MPs, journalists, and activists share the stage for debates on topical issues. This also makes Atreju a networking opportunity. The European Conservatives and Reformist Group (ECR), the EU parliamentary group that FdI is a member of, now sends a delegation to Atreju every year. As one scholar notes, the village is arranged to incentivize socializing instead of herding attendees towards speeches and debates; the party has even offered to pay for hotels for women to achieve greater gender parity at the event. Cumulatively, Atreju thus achieves one of the most important—though academically neglected—functions of party conferences: it rewards members by offering them a fun and career-furthering experience within party confines.
However, these similarities are shallow. Firstly, no party democracy or decision-making happens at Atreju. Of course, party democracy has been attacked at conferences for decades, but its symbolic presence still shapes their character. For example, despite their leadership’s stifling efforts, regional branches and affiliated organizations can submit motions for debate at the UK Labour Party’s annual conference, which allows for significant, high-profile defections from the party line. Even party conventions in the United States, which mostly function as nominating ceremonies for already-selected presidential candidates, offer early openings for agenda-setting for the upcoming campaign. This gives party activists incentives to both fight for representation in speeches and panels and protest outside to redirect attention to other issues.
No such opportunities exist at Atreju. Debates exclusively happen onstage, between speakers who have been chosen by the leadership. And even those debates are often light on antagonism! A 2021 debate on LGBTQ+ protections featured a seemingly diverse panel whose participants ultimately all agreed on their opposition to a proposed bill, just with different arguments. Certainly, some debates contain more disagreements, but there is no guarantee that real internal criticism will be aired.
Secondly, Atreju offers little space for organized interest groups to interact with party leadership. Conferences once gave aligned civil society groups a rare chance to share a space with both national and local party leaderships, which they used to raise concerns and proposals. In recent decades, this has transformed into something closer to lobbying, with firms and NGOs buying stalls or seats and setting up events to network. In Atreju, there are no stalls or seats to buy; the new weeklong schedule means that not all ministers and party members are present at the same time. Advocacy also happens only on stage, when firms and NGOs are invited.
Lastly, even the agenda-setting done at Atreju is minimal. Giorgia Meloni’s finale speech lasted for over an hour and touched on so many topics that it defied easy summary. Party leaders also engage in an astonishing amount of score-settling, attacking influencers and tabloid news stories that had recently criticized the party. These moments of controversy tend to receive the most media coverage.
Political Kermesse?
Perhaps a “kermesse” is the most obvious designation for Atreju; indeed, a significant portion of Italian language reporting on the event uses this term. It refers to a kind of political festival, particularly referencing the Festa de l’Unita, the annual kermesse of the old Communist Party (PCI). At their peak, these festivals were massive. Like Atreju, they featured political events and discussions and were capped off by a speech from the PCI leader Enrico Berlinguer. They were also cultural events. Live music played a big role; each Festa included multiple shows from big and small musicians throughout each day.
The Festa de l’Unita is an unambiguous product of the era of mass politics. The PCI represented a pre-existing section of civil society, meaning they already had a large and mobilized base among urban working-class voters. Cultural events were thus less focused on forging a common identity among supporters; rather, they sought to motivate members to remain engaged with the party and contribute. For this reason, their yearly festivals contained a surprisingly large number of non-political cultural activities and events. Food has always been important; stalls offer cheap or even free local cooking. Art installations are put up while small shops, and even theaters dot the outdoor village. One could easily attend without engaging with politics much. The fun is the goal; it ensures people volunteer their time and money next year. In its later years, the Festa de l’Unita was attended by people regardless of their political affiliation. Many have even forgotten the festival’s connection to the PCI: regions now organize their own kermesses under the same name.
Culture is certainly a big part of Atreju, but it is affected from the top down. It lacks an open, spontan-eous, and volunteer-driven character.
It is hard to imagine Atreju outliving FdI in the same way. Its organizers make no effort to be non-partisan; Atreju is an explicitly conservative event. The signs as you enter mock political opponents and critics. There are many fewer stalls in its villages; the ones there mostly provide food, and even these are not presented as an attraction in their own right. Culture is certainly a big part of Atreju, but it is affected from the top down. It lacks the open, spontaneous, and volunteer-driven character of the PCI’s kermesses. If one goes to Atreju, they do so for its political vision.
What does Atreju do?
If Atreju cannot be easily categorized, then maybe it is better to ask what it tries to achieve. The first few events were explicitly organized for youth militants to commemorate the MSI and learn about its history. Later ones became an opportunity for Meloni to consolidate what would become her inner circle alongside a network of far-right organizations and cultural groups. Since 2006, most agree that the event aims to mainstream the Italian far right. While this portrayal is certainly more accurate in its own right, it is still not immediately obvious how it achieves this effect.
Mainstreaming, the Traditional Way
The literature on far-right mainstreaming suggests a couple of strategies by which far-right organizations can launder and normalize their extreme opinions. One is simply through gaining greater media coverage: attention helps far-right parties by making issues they own more politically salient, introducing more potentially receptive people to their messages, and trivializing their organizations. Atreju thrived from the controversial headlines that emerged every time a prominent politician or activist agreed to appear; it was this feature that turned it into a national media event. Most news reporting in 2023 and 2024 focused on guests, especially Elon Musk, Rishi Sunak, and Javier Milei. Meanwhile, the tabloid squabbles that FdI leaders fueled kept them in the news while directing attention away from the substance of their talks.
Another mainstreaming strategy involves changing the far right’s appearance, making them look more serious and proximate to already popular figures and ideas, thereby situating their views within the realm of respectability. This is demonstrated in Atreju’s professionalization efforts, its invitation of mainstream guests, and its Atreju Award, which is given to prominent Italian public figures with right-wing views, like Edoardo Vinanello, a historic pop singer.
Yet, despite Atreju being a national news event for almost 20 years now, its organizers must still sanitize their ideas at the event and often get into trouble when they fail to do so. More extreme musical acts are still stuck in fringe events; the few times when organizers have tried to blur these lines led mainstream performers to apologize for their presence and never return. Other times, it does not seem like FdI care much about mainstreaming at Atreju. The youth group that the whole event is supposedly built around is unabashedly extreme: a 2024 investigation found them regularly chanting Mussolini-era chants and songs, placing “Reject Modernism/Embrace Fascism” stickers around Rome, and organizing fascist book clubs. But at Atreju, party leaders refused to condemn this behavior, instead attacking the media organization behind the investigation.
It is not clear why Fratelli d’Italia even needs to use Atreju to normalize itself anymore. It is now the most popular national party and is in office, giving the party year-long opportunities for mainstreaming.
It is not clear why Fratelli d’Italia even needs to use Atreju to normalize itself anymore. It is now the most popular national party and is in office, giving the party year-long opportunities for mainstreaming. The shock of opposition politicians attending has largely waned as well.
Mainstreaming as Party-Building
The problem with the literature described above is that it is too focused on how extreme parties package their offerings. This comes at the expense of looking at how these offerings persuade people to become party members and active voters. It is not enough to simply make one’s ideas more normal; far-right parties must offer supporters something they do not get from other parties. Parties must craft identities for their supporters that make it easier—even desirable—for them to adopt, defend, and spread the ideas their leaders espouse. Atreju builds identity in three ways.
First, the spectacle of Atreju broadcasts an accessible image of FdI and conservative voters and their lifestyles. Young attendants fit neither the stereotypes of skinheads nor nerdy conservative kids in suits. They listen to contemporary music, possess an ironic yet energetic sense of humor, and amuse themselves with the non-partisan attractions that any festivalgoer will recognize. Promotional material emphasizes their curious personalities, keenness to absorb debates, and a feeling of community even amidst political disagreement.
Second, Atreju aims to demonstrate a party culture of power and strength. In an era of political disillusionment, where trust in political institutions is low and voters see politicians as powerless or useless, FdI portrays its leaders and supporters as cutting through the noise and getting things done. The great emphasis on taunting the left at Atreju achieves this. In this sense, the event functions more like a Trump rally, where attendees spend little time engaging with or making warnings about their opponent’s plans. Instead, they use mockery: audience boos, silly graphics displaying the world the left supposedly wants to build—with open borders and a “red judiciary” —as well as posters attacking opposing politicians. The leader of the PD, Elly Schlein, who refuses to attend Atreju, receives special attention. Posts of attendees insulting Schlein are put up on Atreju’s Instagram, Meloni calls Schlein a “coward” for not coming on a yearly basis now, and slogans insulting Schlein are plastered on the walls of Atreju’s village.
The high-profile guests that FdI invites contribute to the aura of power, furthering an image of Meloni as the vanguard of the globally ascendant far-right movement. This ensures that the event becomes national news in other countries, thereby providing a media platform that foreign politicians wish to take advantage of. FdI supporters also relish in the image of opposing figures attending Atreju, having to come onto their turf; perhaps that is why Schlein’s refusal to attend causes such ire among the attendees. These portrayals of power have also become central to Meloni’s performance in office: her combination of European-level leadership and geopolitical rhetoric has allowed her to exude an image of leading and transforming Europe. At Atreju, young people get to join this performance.
Finally, an integral part of far-right normalization involves parties taking ownership of that which mainstream actors claim to be protecting; illiberal forces weaponize the failures of liberalism to claim that their maximalist or even authoritarian approach to politics is actually saving liberal democracy from its supposed defenders. If there is one point FdI tries to make clear about Atreju, it is that it is the home of open debate.
Similar to supposed champions of “free speech” in the United States’ Republican party, Atreju advertises interparty debates as an indication of their commitment to liberal values. This discourse is so effective because figures from beyond the far right use it to justify their presence when they face inevitable backlash. When interviewed at Atreju in 2024, 18 years after his groundbreaking debate, Bertinotti said, “as always, there is a respectful audience in all events,” “dialogue with your opponents is a necessity,” and lobbed his own attacks against Elly Schlein. Atreju is the home for Europe-wide debate now: the home secretaries of the UK, France, and Malta joined their FdI counterpart in 2024 for a debate on “The Middle East Question”: no other party conference or festival features these kinds of debates with powerful politicians from around Europe. Therefore, though Atreju fails to substantively recreate these political events, FdI uses these images to imply that they even do traditional politics better than their opponents.
The Paradoxes of Power
The most recent variations of Atreju demonstrate three key paradoxes that confront far-right parties in power.
Firstly, it reflects the contradictory nature of populist far-right party structures, namely the contrast between a rigidly top-down leadership structure and a highly mobilized group of core supporters. To contend with this, Atreju mixes the practices of mass and cartel parties; supporters are unusually powerless but are given the opportunity to flex their muscles, broadcast an image of power, and interact directly with political elites, even if only through audience cheers and boos.
Secondly, it demonstrates the continued importance of eccentricity even for radical parties in power. The traditionally fascist youth group is hidden away; the event itself looks more like a political festival than a fascist celebration; Lord of the Rings and other sci-fi symbols abound. The far right have still not totally normalized their beliefs: instead, they need to craft a new language to sanitize and reframe them.
Lastly, Atreju highlights the importance of projecting power. Far-right politics are based around an oppositional promise to rip up the playbook of the “elites” and the “left”. Yet, progress on that front is inevitably slow and ambiguous. Performances of power are therefore a vital tool in the far-right arsenal in power.
The most fascinating thing about Atreju is how closely the event has traced and reflected the political positions of the 21st-century Italian far right: its goal has shifted from network-building to mainstreaming to populist identity-building in parallel with the needs of the movement. Atreju is an extremely fluid phenomenon; its significance is therefore unlikely to wither away any time soon, but its continued evolution will offer vital insights into the changing structure and needs of the movement in the future.
Atreju is an extremely fluid phenomenon; its significance is therefore unlikely to wither away any time soon.
Alberto Polimeni is a researcher based in London. He has an MA in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and a BA in War Studies and Philosophy from King’s College London. His research is interested in how far-right populist parties make strategic political decisions, how they prompt systemic changes in political systems, and their emerging foreign policy ideas.
Image: “ATREJUMELONI17122023 258A,” by it:indeciso42 licensed under CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
