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Italy’s Giuseppe Conte to visit Donald Trump on July 30

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will pay his first visit to the White House on July 30th, US President Donald Trump's office announced on Wednesday.

Published: 28 June 2018 08:33 CEST
Italy's Giuseppe Conte to visit Donald Trump on July 30
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte with President Donald Trump at the G7 summit. Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images/AFP

“Italy is an important NATO ally, a leading partner in Afghanistan and Iraq, and key in bringing stability to the Mediterranean region,” the White House said in a statement.

“Together, the United States and Italy will look to deepen cooperation in addressing global conflicts and promoting economic prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The visit will take place after a NATO summit on July 11-12th, which could prove another spiky encounter between the US president and the leaders of Europe. Trump has repeatedly complained that European countries don't contribute enough to NATO's budget. He's also expected to meet President Vladimir Putin of Russia around the same time, another bone of contention with the European allies.


Street art by TvBoy in Rome shows Conte “playing ball” with Trump and Putin. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Conte, at least, can expect a warm welcome in Washington, having already won Trump's praise for being “very strong on immigration”. The Italian premier also sided with Trump on Russia at the G7 summit in Canada, his international debut in office and the first and only time to date he has met the US president.

“I agree with Donald Trump: Russia should be back in the G8,” Conte tweeted ahead of the meeting earlier this month, having already promised that Italy would review its sanctions on Russia.

But he'll be hoping to avoid another awkward moment like the one at that summit, caught on camera in a clip that was roundly mocked in Italy, when he waved to Trump as the US president sat down at the negotiating table – only to be completely ignored by the commander-in-chief.

Conte will be the second Italian prime minister to visit Trump's White House, after his predecessor Paolo Gentiloni was invited in April 2017.

On that occasion the US president praised Italy as a “key partner” and “true friend”, while contradicting its leader over the responsibility of other countries to help stabilize Libya. He also took out his earpiece for the final minutes of their joint press conference, skipping the translation of the Italian premier's last answers.

READ ALSO: Who is Giuseppe Conte, the political novice now Italy's populist PM?

POLITICS

Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

The year 2024 is a bumper one for elections, among them the European elections in June. Italy is of course a member of the EU - so can foreign residents vote in the elections that will almost certainly affect their daily lives?

Published: 3 May 2024 15:25 CEST
Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

Across Europe, people will go to the polls in early June to select their representatives in the European Parliament, with 76 seats up for grabs in Italy. 

Although European elections usually see a much lower turnout than national elections, they are still seen as important by Italian politicians.

Giorgia Meloni will stand as a candidate this year, hoping use her personal popularity to give her Brothers of Italy party a boost and build on her success in Italy to “send the left into opposition” at the European level too.

When to vote

Across Italy, polling takes place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2024.

Polling stations will be set up in the same places as for national and local elections – usually town halls, leisure centres and other public buildings.

You have to vote at the polling station for the municipality in which you are registered as a resident, which should be indicated on your electoral card.

Polling stations open at 8am and mostly close at 6pm, although some stay open later.

Unlike in presidential or local elections, there is only a single round of voting in European elections.

Who can vote? 

Italian citizens – including dual nationals – can vote in European elections, even if they don’t live in Italy. As is common for Italian domestic elections, polling booths will be set up in Italian consulates around the world to allow Italians living overseas to vote.

Non-Italian citizens who are living in Italy can only vote if they have citizenship of an EU country. So for example Irish citizens living in Italy can vote in European elections but Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. cannot.

Brits in Italy used to be able to vote before Brexit, but now cannot – even if they have the post-Brexit carta di soggiorno.

If you have previously voted in an election in Italy – either local or European – you should still be on the electoral roll.

If not, in order to vote you need to send an application more than 90 days before the election date.

How does the election work?

The system for European elections differs from most countries’ domestic polls. MEPs are elected once every five years.

Each country is given an allocation of MEPs roughly based on population size. At present there are 705 MEPs: Germany – the country in the bloc with the largest population – has the most while the smallest number belong to Malta with just six.

Italy, like most of its EU neighbours, elects its MEPs through direct proportional representation via the ‘list’ system, so that parties gain the number of MEPs equivalent to their share of the overall vote.

So, for example, if Meloni’s party won 50 percent of the vote they would get 38 out of the total of 76 Italian seats.

Exactly who gets to be an MEP is decided in advance by the parties who publish their candidate lists in priority order. So let’s say that Meloni’s party does get that 50 percent of the vote – then the people named from 1 to 38 on their list get to be MEPs, and the people lower down on the list do not, unless a candidate (for example, Meloni) declines the seat and passes it on to the next person on the list.

In the run up to the election, the parties decide on who will be their lead candidates and these people will almost certainly be elected (though Meloni would almost definitely not take up her seat as an MEP, as this would mean resigning from office in Italy).

The further down the list a name appears, the less likely that person is to be heading to parliament.

Once in parliament, parties usually seek to maximise their influence by joining one of the ‘blocks’ made up of parties from neighbouring countries that broadly share their interests and values eg centre-left, far-right, green.

The parliament alternates between Strasbourg and Brussels. 

Find out more about voting in the European elections from Italy on the European Parliament’s website or the Italian interior ministry’s website.

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