In September 2019 he abandoned the Democratic Party to join Italia Viva, former PM Matteo Renzi's newly created political movement.

In 2003, when Scalfarotto was working and living in London, he founded the first foreign local club of "Libertà e Giustizia" (Freedom and Justice), a grassroot political organization in the centre-left area, and two years later he stood for election at the primaries held by The Union, the centre-left coalition seeking to identify their candidate for prime minister at the upcoming 2006 general elections.

Together with other people in their thirties and early forties - including Marco Simoni, a university professor from the London School of Economics, the journalist Luca Sofri, and astrophysicist Sandra Savaglio form the Max Planck Institute in Munich - he founded a group called iMille, with the aim of renewing the ruling class of the Italian centre-left.

In this capacity, also after Paolo Gentiloni took over the PM position from Matteo Renzi, he represented Italy at all major International Fora, including the EU Trade Council, G7, G20, OECD and the WTO.

In September 2019, with the creation of the new Government led by Giuseppe Conte, Scalfarotto is made a Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in charge of Trade Policies and bilateral relations with European (EU and non-EU) Countries.

On January 13, 2021, Italia Viva withdrew its confidence in the Government and Scalfarotto, together with the two Ministers from the Party, Teresa Bellanova and Elena Bonetti, resigned from his post.