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Italy’s ex-president Giorgio Napolitano dies aged 98

Giorgio Napolitano, the first person to be elected as president of Italy twice, has died at the age of 98, the presidential palace has confirmed.

Italy's ex-president Giorgio Napolitano dies aged 98
Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano at the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2014. Former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, historic leader of the Communist Party and promoter of European integration, has died at the age of 98 on September 22nd, 2023. (Photo by Patrick HERTZOG / AFP)

Official sources confirmed on Friday night that former president and communist, Napolitano, has died in Rome after weeks in hospital.

Undersecretary of State Alfredo Mantovano has ordered a state funeral on Tuesday, which will be accompanied by a national day of mourning, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

In office between 2006 and 2015, Napolitano was considered a stalwart of stability during a particularly turbulent period in Italy – from the truncated premiership of Romano Prodi to the curtailed mandates of Silvio Berlusconi, Mario Monti and Enrico Letta.

The country also experienced its gravest economic recession since the post-war period.

In 2013, Napolitano agreed to serve an unprecedented second term amid a fierce political deadlock, but resigned two years later because of his advancing age, opening up the post to Sergio Mattarella.

Italy’s current president, Mattarella, wrote, “I am deeply saddened by his death” and “I extend to his family the condolences of the entire nation”.

“In Giorgio Napolitano’s life, is mirrored a large part of the history of the second half of the 20th century, with its dramas, its complexity, its goals and its hopes,” he added.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella

Italian president Sergio Mattarella began formal consultations to form a new government on Thursday. Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP

Former Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, described Napolitano as “an absolute protagonist of Italian and European history over the last seventy years”.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum, Italy’s currently serving far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, expressed her condolences on behalf of the government.

Born in Naples on June 29th, 1925 into a family of intellectuals, Napolitano took part in the resistance against Nazi and fascist troops during World War II, founding a communist group.

At the end of the war, he joined the Italian Communist Party and was elected to parliament in 1953 after earning a law degree.

Napolitano was one of the most influential leaders of the party’s reformist wing, although he notoriously supported the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary in 1956 to crush a liberal revolution.

With the collapse of the USSR, the Italian Communist Party was officially disbanded in 1991.

After turns as lower house speaker, interior minister and leftwing MEP, he became Italy’s first ex-communist to be elected president in 2006.

The veteran held the rare quality of being respected by both right and left and an ability to stay above the party political fray.

He is survived by his wife, Clio, whom he married in 1959, and his two sons Giovanni and Giulio.

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EU

Italy’s Meloni hopes EU ‘understands message’ from voters

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Saturday she hoped the European Union would understand the "message" sent by voters in last weekend's elections, after far-right parties such as hers made gains.

Italy's Meloni hopes EU 'understands message' from voters

Meloni, head of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, which performed particularly well in the vote, urged the EU to “understand the message that has come from European citizens”.

“Because if we want to draw lessons from the vote that everything was fine, I fear it would be a slightly distorted reading,” she told a press conference at the end of a G7 summit in Puglia.

“European citizens are calling for pragmatism, they are calling for an approach that is much less ideological on several major issues,” she said.

Meloni’s right-wing government coalition has vehemently opposed the European Green Deal and wants a harder stance on migration.

“Citizens vote for a reason. It seems to me that a message has arrived, and it has arrived clearly,” she said.

EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Monday to negotiate the top jobs, including whether European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will get a second term.

Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party strengthened its grip with the vote, but her reconfirmation is not yet in the bag.

The 65-year-old conservative was in Puglia for the G7 and likely used the summit to put her case to the leaders of France, Germany and Italy.

But Meloni refused to be drawn on whom she is backing.

“We will have a meeting on Monday, we’ll see,” she told journalists.

“We will also see what the evaluations will be on the other top roles,” she said.

Italian political watchers say Meloni is expected to back von der Leyen, but is unlikely to confirm that openly until Rome locks in a deal on commissioner jobs.

“What interests me is that… Italy is recognised for the role it deserves,” she said.

“I will then make my assessments.”

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani indicated that it was unlikely any decision would be made before the French elections on June 30 and July 7.

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