Meloni visits the Marche region. The government arrives in Ancona: "This is the region's future."

Ancona, August 4, 2025 – To gauge the specific weight of the September vote in the Marche region – Italy's new Ohio in the series of autumn regional elections – the arrival of the center-right government's 'triple' in the capital today is more than enough, following the comings and goings of ministers, undersecretaries, and leading parliamentarians from both camps. At 10:30 a.m., at the Orfeo Tamburi auditorium in the Mole Vanvitelliana, governor Francesco Acquaroli of the Brothers of Italy party , who is running for a second term in the region seized from the center-left five years ago, will be joined by the government's top representatives: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the two deputy prime ministers, Antonio Tajani of the Northern League (Frankfurt) and Matteo Salvini of the Northern League (Lega), via video link from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT). The subject: an institutional meeting – open, but by invitation only – to present the government's interventions for the development of the Marche region . The outcome: the (implicit) grand-scale investiture of the dolphin Francesco Acquaroli in the region that the center-right has erected as a "model of government" (and alliances) and does not even want to risk losing in the difficult campaign leading up to the appointment with the voters, on September 28th and 29th.

“We will present what the government has done , but above all what it is about to do for this very important region, an industrial region, a region that has not always been valued as it should have been,” Tajani reiterated yesterday on the sidelines of Forza Italia's General States of Southern Italy, before later predicting a double victory, in the Marche and Calabria , with the outgoing Acquaroli and Occhiuto (the latter will resign after the notice of investigation, and then run again).

The Prime Minister, as we were saying. Giorgia Meloni returns to the Marche region just under two years (October 28, 2023) after the signing of the cohesion agreement between the government and the Marche Region in Acqualagna , Enrico Mattei's hometown, and to Ancona, almost three years (August 23, 2022) after the rally before two thousand people in Piazza Roma, with which she opened her overwhelming (and successful) general election campaign, alongside her loyal Acquaroli. She will arrive by helicopter at the port of Ancona , and then travel to the auditorium of the Mole Vanvitelliana. In the audience (by invitation) will be the mayors of the Marche region, as well as institutional representatives, parliamentarians, trade associations, and trade unions.

The agenda is tight . At 12:00 p.m., after the meeting in the capital, the Prime Minister will travel to Cessapalombo , in the Macerata hinterland, for the start of the first construction site on the Pedemontana Sud delle Marche, the first improvement project on the route between Belforte del Chienti (Macerata) and Mozzano , in the province of Ascoli. The project involves a 1.7-kilometer stretch of the SS502 "di Cingoli." With her, in addition to Governor Acquaroli, are the CEO of ANAS, Claudio Andrea Gemme, President Giuseppe Pecoraro, the person implementing the post-earthquake road restoration plan, Fulvio Maria Soccodato, and local authorities.

Meanwhile, details are emerging about the Pelikan Clean River , the vessel chosen by center-left MEP Matteo Ricci for his beach campaign . The boat, designed to collect plastic from the sea and operated by the Ancona-based company Garbage srl, received €152,000 in regional funding in 2024, part of which has already been paid out, through a public tender. Nothing illegal, let's be clear. But the fact is, to say the least, curious: the Pelikan, financially supported by the center-right regional government, has become the vessel used by Acquaroli's challenger, Ricci , to campaign for his party. This detail, for him, risks becoming a rhetorical weapon in the hands of his political adversaries.

The Pelikan project, born with environmental objectives , has also operated along the Marche coast, collecting floating waste and presenting itself as a symbol of sustainability and innovation. A noble mission that, in the midst of the campaign, inevitably became intertwined with the media hype of the center-left candidate, who was photographed aboard the vessel at several public events . And so the Pelikan, created to dredge plastic, now risks stirring up already turbulent political waters.