Casa delle Libertà (1994–2008)
The Casa delle Libertà (House of Freedoms) was the principal centre-right coalition in Italy from its formation in 2001, though its antecedents go back to the first Berlusconi government of 1994. It brought together Forza Italia, Alleanza Nazionale, Lega Nord, the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC/CCD-CDU) and other minor partners. The coalition's composition varied somewhat across different elections, but its core was always the FI-AN axis complemented by Lega in the north and smaller Christian democratic parties.
For Crosetto, elected in 1996 in the Polo per le Libertà (a predecessor coalition), the CdL framework was the political architecture within which he conducted his early parliamentary career. It was a coalition of distinct political families — liberal-conservative, post-fascist national conservative, northern regionalist, Christian democratic — held together by opposition to the centre-left and by Berlusconi's dominance as a political entrepreneur. The tensions within the coalition were real but manageable as long as electoral success was plausible and Berlusconi's personal authority was intact.
The CdL won the 2001 election decisively and governed for a full five-year term under Berlusconi II. It lost the 2006 election by the narrowest of margins and won the 2008 election under the new banner of the Popolo della Libertà, by which point FI and AN had formally merged.
Popolo della Libertà (2007–2013)
The Popolo della Libertà was announced in November 2007 as a merger of Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale. From Berlusconi's perspective, the merger was intended to create a unified centre-right party on the model of Germany's CDU/CSU — a broad conservative umbrella capable of competing directly with the centre-left without the complications of coalition management. From the AN perspective, it represented an opportunity to be absorbed into the Italian mainstream rather than remaining associated with a post-fascist heritage.
The PdL contested the 2008 election and won a large majority. Crosetto, as a former FI member now operating under the PdL label, was appointed Undersecretary of State for Defence in the Berlusconi IV government. His minister, Ignazio La Russa, came from the AN tradition — illustrating how the PdL merger, at least at the ministerial level, had genuinely combined the two traditions within a single governmental team.
The PdL's coherence as a party proved, however, to be fragile. Gianfranco Fini's departure in 2010 — he had led AN and served as PdL co-leader before breaking with Berlusconi to form Futuro e Libertà — was the first major fracture. The sovereign debt crisis of 2011 and the collapse of the Berlusconi government in November of that year completed the PdL's disintegration. Berlusconi reconstituted Forza Italia as a separate entity in late 2013; the PdL as such ceased to exist.
The 2011 Fracture and the Conditions for FdI's Founding
The fall of the Berlusconi IV government in November 2011 was a watershed for the Italian right. The immediate cause was the sovereign debt crisis and pressure from European partners and financial markets for a more credible fiscal stabilisation programme. But the deeper causes were political: Berlusconi's declining authority, the PdL's internal fragmentation following the Fini split, and the exhaustion of a political formula that had dominated Italian centre-right politics for nearly twenty years.
For Crosetto, Meloni and La Russa — all of whom had served in the Berlusconi IV government — the collapse presented a clear choice: remain within the remnants of the PdL and attempt to reform it from within, or use the moment of disruption to build something new. They chose the latter. The founding of Fratelli d'Italia in December 2012 (thirteen months after the fall of the Berlusconi government, and in the weeks immediately before the February 2013 election) was a deliberate act of political entrepreneurship rather than a reactive response to immediate events.
The conditions that made the founding viable were several: Berlusconi's legal difficulties (he was convicted of tax fraud in August 2013 and subsequently barred from public office for six years, though he ultimately returned to politics); the fragmentation of the post-AN current within PdL; the appetite among a segment of the electorate for a clearly conservative, nationally-rooted party that was not simply a vehicle for Berlusconi's personal interests; and the three founders' complementary political profiles and personal trust in one another.
FdI and the New Centre-Right Coalition (2019–)
Between 2013 and 2019, FdI operated largely in isolation within the Italian right: it was too small to drive coalition formation and too ideologically distinctive to be easily absorbed into either the Berlusconi or Salvini camps. Its strategy of consistent opposition — to both centre-left and the populist coalition governments of 2018–2021 — gave it a clean political identity but initially limited its coalition leverage.
The situation changed as FdI's poll numbers rose. By 2019, FdI was polling above Forza Italia, a development that inverted the traditional hierarchy of the Italian centre-right. The Lega's entry into the Draghi government of national unity in February 2021 — a decision that Meloni publicly opposed and that FdI refused to join — left FdI as the only significant party outside any governing arrangement for the entire post-2018 legislative term, and its polling continued to rise as Lega's fell.
The 2022 election produced a formal centre-right coalition of FdI, Lega, Forza Italia and Noi con l'Italia (NCI), which won a parliamentary majority. The Meloni government formed on 22 October 2022 allocated portfolios across the coalition: Meloni as Prime Minister (FdI); Matteo Salvini as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure (Lega); Antonio Tajani as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister (FI); and Crosetto as Minister of Defence (FdI). This coalition represented the full consolidation of the centre-right reorganisation that had begun with the PdL's collapse a decade earlier.
European Connections
FdI's positioning within European politics was a central strategic question from its founding. The party sits within the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament — the same group that includes Poland's Law and Justice party, the Spanish Vox, and (until its departure from the EU) the British Conservative Party under David Cameron and Theresa May. The ECR occupies a space to the right of the European People's Party (which includes CDU/CSU, FI and the Spanish PP) but generally within the pro-Atlantic mainstream of European conservatism.
The ECR's defining positions include scepticism about deeper European integration, insistence on member-state sovereignty, support for NATO and the transatlantic alliance, and social conservatism. FdI's membership of the ECR was consistent with these positions, though Meloni's government has at times emphasised constructive engagement with EU institutions even while maintaining its positions on governance reform.
For Crosetto specifically, the European dimension of his work as Defence Minister has been central: Italy participates actively in EU defence cooperation frameworks (PESCO, the European Defence Agency), and his approach has been to press for more effective European defence collaboration while insisting on the primacy of NATO as the cornerstone of European security.
NATO as Alliance Framework
Italy has been a founding member of NATO since 1949, and its commitment to the alliance has been consistent across governments of different political compositions. The country hosts major NATO installations including the Alliance's Joint Force Command Naples and several key US military bases, and it contributes significantly to NATO missions and capabilities.
Crosetto's approach to NATO has been one of the clearest and most consistent elements of his political identity. Throughout FdI's years in opposition — including when questions were raised about FdI's European and transatlantic orientation — he maintained an unequivocal commitment to NATO, to the 2% GDP defence spending target, and to the alliance's collective defence obligations under Article 5.
His approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine — which he consistently characterised as a threat to the European security order that required a firm allied response — aligned Italy's position with those of its principal NATO allies and demonstrated that the concerns sometimes expressed about FdI's approach to Russia were not borne out in ministerial practice. Italy has provided military and financial assistance to Ukraine under his tenure, within the framework of allied coordination.
Key Figures in Crosetto's Alliance World
Giorgia Meloni (FdI). Prime Minister and FdI president. Co-founder with Crosetto and La Russa. The relationship between Crosetto and Meloni is characterised by mutual respect and complementary roles: she leads the party and the government, he manages the ministry with extensive autonomy on technical matters.
Ignazio La Russa (FdI). President of the Senate and third co-founder of FdI. La Russa and Crosetto worked together as minister and undersecretary during the Berlusconi IV government. La Russa's institutional position as Senate President (the second-highest office of state) provides the coalition with a significant constitutional presence.
Antonio Tajani (FI). Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and leader of Forza Italia following Berlusconi's death in June 2023. Tajani's role as Foreign Minister places him in close institutional contact with Crosetto on foreign and security policy questions where defence and diplomacy overlap.
Matteo Salvini (Lega). Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure. Salvini's Lega is a coalition partner of FdI; the two parties have distinct political styles and some policy differences, but the governing coalition has maintained its cohesion since October 2022.
Silvio Berlusconi (FI, 1936–2023). The founder of Forza Italia and the dominant figure of the Italian centre-right for nearly three decades. Crosetto's career began within Berlusconi's FI and was shaped by the decade of PdL. Berlusconi's declining health and eventual death in June 2023 marked the end of an era in Italian centre-right politics.