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ELECTION

Italy’s political parties are moving closer to a deal for autumn elections

Italy's political parties were on Tuesday edging towards a deal that would pave the way for elections in the autumn under a new proportional system, sending ripples through financial markets.

Published: 30 May 2017 14:08 CEST
Italy's political parties are moving closer to a deal for autumn elections
Italy's Chamber of Deputies, the Lower House of Parliament. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The current parliament's mandate does not run out until early 2018, but early elections have been mooted constantly since Matteo Renzi quit as prime minister in December following an embarrassing defeat in a referendum over constitutional reforms.

READ ALSO: Early elections are looking increasingly likely in Italy. Here's why

President Sergio Mattarella has demanded a clear electoral plan before dissolving parliament, and the negotiations have dragged on for months.

But Renzi's ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) appears to have come to an agreement with the populist Five Star Movement, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the anti-euro, anti-immigrant Northern League to use a German-style proportional system for the vote.

Half of the seats would be elected under a first-past-the-post system, with the other half distributed among all parties winning more than five percent to ensure their seats reflect their share of the vote.

Italy's electoral system has been in constant flux for two decades but has gradually moved away from proportional representation.

Opinion polls suggest no stable majority is likely to emerge, a prospect that has worried financial markets, with the Milan stock exchange losing two percent on Monday.

Graph of opinion polling in the lead up to the next Italian election. The Democratic Party is represented in red, the Five Star Movement in yellow, Forza Italia in light blue, and the Northern League in green. Graph: Impru20/Wikimedia Commons

Five Star activists backed the plan in an online vote at the weekend, while reports said Renzi and Berlusconi were gearing up to present a bill outlining the changes as early as next week.

Northern League chief Matteo Salvini, who considers the current government to be illegitimate due to the PD's triple leadership change since the last elections, backs a vote as soon as possible and has said he will accept any electoral system.

Reports said Renzi was seeking elections on September 24th – the same day as Germany's parliamentary elections – but a date in October is thought to be more feasible.

The PD and Five Star Movement are running neck and neck in the polls with around 30 percent and either could be forced into governing alliances that they have previously rejected – the PD with Forza Italy, and M5S with the Northern League.

READ ALSO: Italy's political system: The key things to knowItaly's political system: Key things to know
Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

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MIGRANT CRISIS

Charity warns Italy’s ban on migrant rescue planes risks lives

A migrant rescue charity warned on Thursday that a new Italian ban on using surveillance planes to spot migrant boats in distress in the Mediterranean could endanger lives.

Published: 9 May 2024 15:14 CEST
Charity warns Italy's ban on migrant rescue planes risks lives

Italy’s civil aviation authority Enac issued orders in the past week saying charities will have their planes seized if they carry out “search and rescue” activities from airports in Sicily.

The move follows restrictions placed by far-right premier Giorgia Meloni’s government on charity rescue ships as it attempts to fulfil its election pledges to curb arrivals, which soared to around 158,000 last year.

Nearly 2,500 people are known to have died in 2023 trying to cross the central Mediterranean, a 75 percent increase on the previous year, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

READ ALSO: What’s behind Italy’s soaring number of migrant arrivals?

“This is definitely another attempt to criminalise search and rescue,” Giulia Messmer, spokesperson for the German charity Sea Watch, told AFP.

Sea Watch has two planes, the Seabird 1 and 2, but if they “are not able to fly anymore”, the planes “cannot communicate spotted distress cases” to authorities and ships able to carry out rescues, she said.

Enac says it is up to the coastguard, not charities, to perform search and rescue operations. The ban applies to the airports of Palermo and Trapani in Sicily, as well as the islands of Lampedusa and Pantelleria.

IN NUMBERS: Five graphs to understand migration to Italy

The IOM told AFP that while it was “waiting to understand its actual implementation, we are concerned that this decision may hinder life-saving efforts”.

Sea Watch warned the planes do not only play a vital role in spotting boats at risk of sinking, they also document the behaviour of the Libyan coastguard, often accused of violence towards migrants.

‘Political propaganda’

Immigration lawyer Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo told AFP the order issued by Enac was based on “a partial and contradictory reconstruction of national and international laws governing search and rescues”.

It was a political move, “a warning, during the election campaign” for the European Elections, he said.

Sea Watch on Twitter also called the move “an act of cowardice and cynicism… for political propaganda”.

Enac answers to Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant League party.

READ ALSO: ‘More will drown’: Italy accused of breaking international law on migrant rescues

Messmer, 28, said the Seabird 2 flew on Wednesday from Lampedusa despite the ban and the charity “plans to continue flying in the coming days”.

There were no issues getting the necessary authorisation from the airport to take off and land, she said.

Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, was elected to office in 2022 promising to stop migrant boats arriving from North Africa.

Her government has brought in a law obliging charity ships to stage only one rescue at a time and they are often assigned ports in Italy’s distant north, making missions longer and more expensive.

Rome has also signed a controversial deal with Albania by which migrants from countries considered to be safe will be intercepted at sea and taken straight to Italian-run centres in Albania.

Critics say the deal is expensive and will prove ineffective because the two centres will only be able to hold a maximum of 3,000 people at a time and asylum applications are notorious slow.

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