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Tag: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

  • Italy to sanction citizens for use of English words in official communication

    Italy to sanction citizens for use of English words in official communication

    A new law put out by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party might result in fines of up to €100,000 ($108,705) for Italians who use English and other foreign language in official communications.

    The measure was proposed by lower chamber deputies member Fabio Rampelli, and it has the approval of the prime minister.

    Although all foreign languages are included by the legislation, it is specifically targeted at “Anglomania,” or the usage of English words, which the draft claims “demeans and mortifies” the Italian language. It adds that this is made worse by the UK’s exit from the EU.

    The bill, which has yet to go up for parliamentary debate, requires anyone who holds an office in public administration to have “written and oral knowledge and mastery of the Italian language.” It also prohibits use of English in official documentation, including “acronyms and names” of job roles in companies operating in the country.

    Foreign entities would have to have Italian language editions of all internal regulations and employment contracts, according to a draft of the legislation seen by CNN.

    “It is not just a matter of fashion, as fashions pass, but Anglomania has repercussions for society as a whole,” the draft bill states.

    The first article of the legislation guarantees that even in offices that deal with non-Italian-speaking foreigners, Italian must be the primary language used.

    Article 2 would make Italian “mandatory for the promotion and use of public goods and services in the national territory.” Not doing so could garner fines between €5,000 ($5,435) and €100,000 ($108,705).

    Under the proposed law, the Culture Ministry would establish a committee whose remit would include “correct use of the Italian language and its pronunciation” in schools, media, commerce and advertising.

    This would mean that saying “bru-shetta” instead of “bru-sketta” could be a punishable offense.

    The move to safeguard the Italian language joins an existing bid by the government to protect the country’s cuisine.

    It has introduced legislation to ban so-called synthetic or cell-based cuisine due to the lack of scientific studies on the effects of synthetic food, as well as “to safeguard our nation’s heritage and our agriculture based on the Mediterranean diet,” Meloni’s Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said in a press conference.

  • 59 people are killed as migrant boat hits rocks

    59 people are killed as migrant boat hits rocks

    Italian authorities report that a wooden boat carrying migrants broke apart on rocks off the coast of Calabria, killing at least 59 individuals, including several women, children, and infants.

    The death toll is preliminary and is probably going to go up.
    Search operations are being hampered by bad weather in that region of the Mediterranean sea since it has increased the size of the debris field.

    Around 4:40 a.m. local time on Sunday, the first three bodies washed ashore on the beach close to Staccato di Cutro in Southern Italy.

    According to Reuters, the ship left the Turkish city of Izmir three or four days ago with 140 to 150 individuals on board.

    Around 80 people were saved from the water clinging on to pieces of the boat, Italy’s fire brigade told CNN. The survivors were from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, they added.

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni blamed human traffickers. “It is criminal to launch a boat just 20 meters long with 200 people on board in adverse weather,” she said in a statement. “It is inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the price of a ticket under the false perspective of a safe journey.”

    Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi added that new measures must be instituted to reduce such perilous journeys. “It is essential to continue with every possible initiative to stop departures and discourage crossings in any way which takes advantage of the illusory mirage of a better life,” he said in a statement.

    Meloni made stopping migrant boats a priority of her hard-right government. This week parliament approved new laws making it more difficult for NGOs to carry out rescues.

    In Vatican City on Sunday, in reference to the victims of the shipwreck, Pope Francis said: “I pray for each of them, for the missing, and for the other migrants who survived. I thank those who are helping them and those who are giving them assistance. May the Virgin Mary help these brothers and sisters.”

    UNHCR records show that 11,874 people have arrived in Italy so far in 2023 by sea, with 678 of them arriving at Calabria.

    Typically, arrivals are from African countries, rather than the Middle East and Asia, with the majority of boats setting off from Libya.

    Only 8.3% of arrivals are from Pakistan, 6.7% from Afghanistan and 0.7% from Iran. The rest are primarily from Africa, with 17.3% of arrivals from Ivory Coast alone, 13.1% from Guinea. Other African nations, including North African countries, make up most of the rest.

    The most deadly migration route is the Central Mediterranean route, where at least 20,334 people have died since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project.

  • Italy prime minister irritated by ‘inappropriate’ Zelenskyy’s meeting

    Italy prime minister irritated by ‘inappropriate’ Zelenskyy’s meeting

    The Franco-German meeting with the Ukrainian leader in Paris, according to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, did not promote “unity.”

    As a result of not being invited to a dinner in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has criticised France and Germany, causing a rift between the European Union’s allies.

    Zelenskyy began a surprise trip to Western Europe on Wednesday with a stop in the United Kingdom. He then travelled to France, where, ahead of a Thursday EU summit, he had a late dinner with Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

    But unlike the previous year, when Macron and Scholz collaborated closely on Ukraine with the then-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Meloni was left out in the cold.

    Speaking to reporters as she arrived at the Brussels summit on Thursday, Meloni, who took office last October, said she thought the snub was “inappropriate”.

    “I think our strength in this fight is unity,” she added.

    She later met Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the EU meeting.

    Asked about her comments, Macron said he thought Wednesday’s dinner had been fitting.

    “As you know, Germany and France have had a special role on the Ukraine question for eight years,” he told reporters, referring to joint mediation by the two countries that tried, and failed, to prevent conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

    However, things were different when Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, was prime minister. Draghi travelled with Macron and Scholz to Kyiv by train last June and played a leading role with them in shaping EU opposition to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

    Meloni has pledged to maintain the same pro-Ukraine stance, despite the misgivings of some of her coalition allies, telling reporters on Thursday that providing help to Kyiv was the best way to bring about peace.

    Underscoring her willingness to support Kyiv, Italy and France finalised technical talks last week for the joint delivery of a SAMP/T-MAMBA air defence system to Ukraine early this year.

    However, Meloni’s brand of nationalist politics has put her at odds with both Macron and Scholz on an array of other issues and the close ties that Draghi forged with Paris and Berlin seem a distant memory.

    Paris last November accused Meloni’s new government of breaking a bond of trust and breaching international laws by refusing to take in refugees and migrants saved by a charity rescue ship. The boat eventually docked in France instead.

    Earlier this week, French and German ministers flew to Washington together to discuss contested US subsidies with their US counterparts, excluding Italy, which is the second-largest manufacturer in the European Union after Germany.

  • Tragic Mediterranean boat accident kills pregnant woman and four-month-old

    Tragic Mediterranean boat accident kills pregnant woman and four-month-old

    Officials and witnesses say that on a ship carrying migrants and refugees, victims experienced hunger and cold.

    According to authorities and witnesses, several people perished on board a refugee and migrant vessel in the central Mediterranean, including a pregnant woman and a baby who was four months old.

    According to Filippo Mannino, mayor of the island of Lampedusa, the Italian coastguard “recovered eight bodies, five men and three women,” late on Thursday. Additionally, 42 survivors were brought ashore.

    Uncertainty surrounds the tragedy’s exact cost.

    Italy’s ANSA news agency said rescue services intervened in Malta’s Search and Rescue (SAR) region to assist a boat in distress. The bodies of two people were still missing, ANSA reported.

    Rescuers found the passengers, who had boarded the six-metre-long boat in the Tunisian town of Sfax early on Saturday, soaked and experiencing extreme cold and dehydration after days at sea.

    Survivors said one woman was travelling with her four-month-old baby, who died during the journey. She put the infant’s body in the sea in her grief, before she also died of cold and hunger

    Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Agrigento have launched an investigation into the incident.

    The boat was 67km (42 miles) from Lampedusa, where it was headed.

    The tiny islet has been dealing with the arrival of hundreds of refugees and migrants, with Mannino complaining that its inhabitants have been left “almost alone” in dealing with the reception.

    The mayor on Thursday appealed to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, asking for the government’s support in managing “this enormous tragedy”.

    “Help, we cannot handle it this way for much longer,” he said as he headed to the Favarolo port ahead of the survivors’ arrival.

    The passengers, who hail from Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Niger, have been taken to a reception centre on the island and will be questioned by prosecutors in the coming hours, ANSA reported.

    The rate of arrivals appears to be increasing.

    Almost 5,000 refugees and migrants have landed in Italy since the start of the year, according to the interior ministry, up from just over 3,000 in the same period last year, and 1,000 in 2021.

    In recent months, hundreds have drowned off the Tunisian coast, with an increase in the frequency of attempted crossings from Tunisia and Libya towards Italy.

    The coastline of Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East for a chance of a better life in Europe.

  • Italy shooting: Man opens fire in cafe killing three women

    Three women were killed, including a friend of Italy’s new prime minister, when a man opened fire at a cafe in Rome, injuring four others.

    Those inside were attending a meeting of the residents’ committee of a nearby block.

    The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, called the shooting a “grave episode of violence” and said he would attend an emergency meeting on Monday.

    A suspect, 57, has been apprehended. According to reports, he has a history of disagreements with some of the committee’s board members.

    According to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, the committee’s vice-president, Luciana Ciorba, was at the cafe in the Fidene district.

    She said the gunman had entered the bar on Sunday shouting “I’ll kill you all” before using his pistol. He was reportedly overpowered by other residents before being detained by police.

    Of those people injured, believed to be two women and two men, one remains in a serious condition.

    Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni named one of the women killed as her friend Nicoletta Golisano. The other dead women were named as Elisabetta Silenzi and Sabina Sperandio.

    In a Facebook post, where she sent her condolences to Ms Golisano’s family, Ms Meloni said she would always remember her friend for being “beautiful and happy”.

    “Nicoletta was a protective mother, a sincere and discreet friend, a woman strong and fragile at the same time,” she wrote.

    “But above all she was a professional with a sense of duty out of the ordinary… Nicoletta was my friend.”

    “It’s not right to die like that,” she added. “Nicoletta was happy, and beautiful, in the red dress she bought for her 50th birthday party a few weeks ago. For me she will always be beautiful and happy like that.”

    Ms Meloni also said that a shooting range from which the suspect had allegedly stolen the gun used in the attack had been closed and was under investigation.

    Police are yet to comment on the motivation of the suspect, who has been named by the Italian press but not officially. The attack is not thought to have been political.

    Reports suggest the suspect and the apartment block’s board of residents have been locked in a bitter dispute for some time.

    Giorgia Meloni, leader of Italy’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, became the country’s first female prime minister in October.

    Forensic teams examine the scene of the shooting
    IMAGE SOURCE,EPA Image caption, Forensic teams examined the scene of the shooting

  • Italy permit migrant boat to dock but many remain stranded

    After a week at sea, migrants from one of four rescue boats that Italy had barred from docking have been allowed to disembark, according to the charity that operates the vessel.

    A total of 89 people on board the Rise Above were permitted to alight.

    However, people continue to board three other rescue boats as Rome vows to stop irregular migrants from crossing the Mediterranean.

    Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has stated that she wants people traffickers to stop “deciding who enters Italy.”

    Her right-wing government has been criticised for denying safe port to the rescue boats.

    But Chiara Cardoletti, the UN refugee commissioner’s representative in Italy, said that Italy had been on the front line of the migrant crisis for too long and she called on the European Union to find a common strategy.

    “We appreciate what Italy has done by allowing boats to enter territorial waters, allowing children, women and people with medical problems to disembark,” she told the BBC. “Italy cannot be left alone, the European Union must step forward and find appropriate and faster solutions.”

    On Monday, three people leapt into the water from the Geo Barents after being refused permission to disembark in the Sicilian port of Catania. They were among about 250 migrants told to remain on two boats in Catania after officials deemed them “healthy”.

    Mission Lifeline, a German charity that runs the Rise Above, said in a statement that it was “relieved that the rescued people are finally safe on land” at Reggio Calabria on the Italian mainland, a few kilometres from Sicily. Many of the 89 who disembarked were described as minors.

    Authorities told Italian media that they had been allowed to leave because they had been picked up in a so-called save and rescue (SAR) incident in the Mediterranean, whereas those on the two boats docked in Sicily were not.

    The charity condemned what it called an “undignified political game” that had kept them at sea. The crew of the Rise Above have not yet been able to leave the boat, according to Italian reports.

    Mission Lifeline said the Rise Above was by far the smallest of the three vessels in port and its passengers had suffered badly in recent heavy seas.

    Italy is one of the main entry points into Europe. Since the start of the year, 85,000 migrants have arrived on boats, according to the UN.

    Migrants set sail in small, overcrowded boats from North Africa, often get into distress and are rescued by charity vessels.

    Over the weekend, two boats docked in Sicily, carrying a large group of migrants.

    Most were allowed to leave, but 35 men on the Humanity 1 and another 215 on the Geo Barents, which is run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), were told they would have to stay on board.

    A fourth boat, Ocean Viking, run by French charity SOS Mediterranée, remains off the coast of Sicily with some 234 migrants aboard. They were picked up from the sea off Libya 17 days ago and have repeatedly demanded access to an Italian port.

    Both SOS Humanity, which runs Humanity 1, and MSF have argued that everyone on board their ships is vulnerable, as they were rescued from the sea.

    SOS Humanity is also taking the Italian government to court, alleging that a decree by an Italian minister, allowing the migrants to be kept on the ships, breaks both Italian and international law.