Italian PM Giorgia Meloni threatens Pakistan amid Pahalgam tensions

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a reverse image search to find the original context of the clip.

Posts from multiple Indian users on social media platform X on April 30, 2025, shared a video clip of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, claiming it allegedly showed her threatening Pakistan during a speech amid regional tensions with India. However, the video is old from 2019 and does not feature Meloni threatening Pakistan.

Relations between Pakistan and India have turned exceedingly sour since an attack took place in Pahalgam, a tourist hotspot in India-occupied Kashmir that draws thousands of visitors every summer, on April 22. Gunmen opened fire on visitors, killing at least 26 people — all men from across India except one from Nepal — and injuring 17 others. Following the attack, India, without providing evidence, implied that attackers had links to Pakistan, an allegation that Islamabad has vehemently refuted.

The incident led to a severe downgrading of ties between the two countries. Since then, the Indian mainstream and social media outlets have been spreading propaganda against Pakistan.

HOW IT STARTED

On April 30, an X user based in India posted a clip of Italian OM Meloni delivering a fiery speech in her native language ge.

The caption of the post: “PM of Italy Giorgia Meloni: Threatening Pakistan.”

The post was viewed by over 313,000 users.

The clip was also shared with a similar claim here, racking up over 860,000 views.

It was also widely shared by other Indian users as can be seen here, here, here, here and here.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and keen public interest in remarks from foreign leaders about Pakistan.

A keyword search to corroborate the alleged development yielded no news reports from credible mainstream outlets.

A reverse image search yielded a shorter version of the video on X, dated January 19, 2025. According to the caption, Giorgia Meloni called for Rome, the capital of Italy, to become the capital of the European Union during a political convention in April 2019 of the Italian far-right party Fratelli D’Italia (FDI) in Turin.

The video was accompanied by English subtitles, provided by www.Translate.Mom, as indicated by the watermark in the upper right corner.

Further investigation led to the discovery of a longer version of the video, posted by Vista, a television agency in Italy, on April 14, 2019.

Comparing the frames with the viral clip showed it was the same video.

The description of the YouTube video, translated from Italian, reads: Turin, 14 April 2019 – The Fratelli d’Italia electoral campaign for the 2019 European elections begins in Turin with the programmatic conference entitled “In Europe to change everything.”

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim about a viral video of Italian politician Giorgia Meloni threatening Pakistan in a speech during tensions in South Asia is false.

The viral clip, from 2019, is part of the Fratelli d’Italia electoral campaign for the 2019 European elections; hence and entirely unrelated to Pakistan or current regional tensions.

Evidence and References

April 14, 2019, YpuTube video:
https://youtu.be/wXLGfNrWxgE?si=-Qx3CQGOS0pzRwgd