Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has attacked the Più Libri Più Liberi book fair after organisers announced that publishers must sign a declaration affirming anti-fascist and constitutional values to participate in the December 2026 edition. She called the requirement she called simple censorship.
The row erupted on Saturday 14 June when Meloni posted on X attacking the Italian Association of Publishers (AIE), which organises Più Libri Più Liberi — Italy’s national fair for small and medium-sized publishers. The 25th edition of the fair is scheduled to run from 4 to 8 December 2026.
Under new registration rules introduced for this year’s edition, publishers wishing to exhibit must sign a declaration committing to uphold the values of the Italian Constitution, to repudiate fascism and all forms of totalitarianism, and to refrain from displaying or selling material that promotes fascism or incites hatred or discrimination. The AIE has designed the system so that publishers who do not tick the relevant clauses are blocked from completing their application.
Meloni’s criticism of the Book Fair
In her post, Meloni described the requirement as an “anti-fascism badge” (patentino antifascista) and characterised it as ideologically discriminatory. “This is how the Left conceives freedom of thought: you are free, but only if you say what they allow you to say, if you think what they think, if you read what they consider appropriate,” she wrote. “The cancellation of non-leftist ideas, disguised as an anti-fascist struggle, is an old vice of the Left, but it is a story that no one believes in any more. It is simply called censorship. And censorship is incompatible with any democratic society.”
Meloni posted while Roberto Vannacci was holding the constituent assembly of his new party, Futuro Nazionale, across Rome. Vannacci, who attended a press conference that same afternoon, aligned himself with the Prime Minister’s position, saying that freedom of expression enshrined in the Constitution “must not be subject to any badge, whether anti-fascist or anti-anything-else.”
The Passaggio al Bosco Row
The declaration is a direct response to events at the 2025 edition of the fair, when the participation of Passaggio al Bosco — a publishing house whose catalogue critics described as substantially devoted to figures and experiences from the Nazi-fascist and antisemitic tradition — triggered a significant backlash. Eighty-nine intellectuals signed a letter calling for the publisher to be excluded. At the time, the AIE defended a pluralist position, saying the fair was “the home of all Italian publishers” and that admission should not depend on political orientation.
Several authors and exhibitors withdrew in protest. The cartoonist Zerocalcare announced he would not participate, explaining that his decision had been made fifteen years earlier — he would not share a platform with publishers he considered neo-fascist — but that applying it now felt “like a minefield.” The Rome city council also boycotted the fair’s opening ceremony. During the fair itself, a group of publishers and visitors gathered in front of the Passaggio al Bosco stand and sang Bella Ciao.
In the months between the end of the 2025 edition and the opening of registration for 2026, the AIE introduced the new declaration requirement. No specific resolution or vote date has been made public; the clause appears to have been incorporated into the standard registration documentation sent to publishers ahead of this year’s sign-up process.
Book Fair rejects censorship statement
The book fair issued a statement rejecting the censorship accusation. “The decision to ask participants to sign a declaration on the sharing of constitutional, democratic and non-negotiable principles is not censorship at all, but a need for clarity and unity among the various stakeholders present at the book fair,” it said. It added that the Prime Minister’s intervention warranted “further careful consideration out of institutional respect”.
The fair is chaired by Annamaria Malato and run by the AIE, a trade body representing the Italian publishing industry. The fair itself said it was saddened by the Prime Minister’s intervention.
Opposition hits back at Meloni
Opposition politicians responded sharply. Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said Meloni’s indignation was selective. “We didn’t hear her get so excited when a section of the right put up stickers to distinguish Italian shops from those run by foreigners, or when blacklists were drawn up against professors considered non-aligned,” Schlein said. “Giorgia Meloni swore on the Constitution, and the Constitution is anti-fascist. In guaranteeing freedom of expression, it doesn’t consider Fascism an opinion, it bans it. We live in a country that has a Constitution written by those who fought in the Resistance to free us from the Fascist regime and Nazi occupation.”
Other opposition voices accused Meloni of calculating an appeal to the far-right voter base that Vannacci’s new party is also targeting. The controversy touches a constitutional nerve: under Article XII of the Italian Constitution’s transitional dispositions, and under the so-called Mancino Law of 1993, the public apology of fascism is prohibited in Italy. The AIE’s declaration echoes that existing legal framework rather than departing from it.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio added an ironic dimension to the debate, noting that the Italian Penal Code itself bears Mussolini’s signature.
