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Italy’s opposition parties unite for rally against controversial government reforms

Italy's opposition put on an unusual united front at a rally in Rome on Tuesday against sweeping reforms planned by the hard-right government that would hand more powers to prime ministers and regional authorities.

Published: 19 June 2024 09:21 CEST
Italy's opposition parties unite for rally against controversial government reforms
Italy's three main opposition parties rallied together on Tuesday to protest controversial government reforms. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP.

Critics say the reforms would divide Italy between the wealthy north and poorer south, strip parliament of its powers and jeopardise the independence of the judiciary.

Around 2,000 people attended the protest, the first to bring together the leaders of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Greens and Left Alliance (AVS).

The reforms include the election of the prime minister by popular vote, granting more autonomy from Rome for regions and a separation of the training, careers and status of judges and prosecutors.

Around 20 lawmakers brawled in parliament over the autonomy plan on June 13th, with some comparing the punch-up to the days of fascism.

An MS5 deputy was taken to hospital with injuries after being mobbed by members of the pro-autonomy Northern League.

READ ALSO: ‘Shameful’: What’s behind the punch-ups in Italy’s parliament?

Both the election and autonomy reforms took a concrete step forward after a Senate vote on Tuesday evening and an all-night session in the lower house that ended on Wednesday morning.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has post-fascist roots, called the electoral reform “a first step forward in strengthening democracy” on social media network X.

The opposition sees the reform, which would entail altering Italy’s constitution, as placing parliament under the control of Meloni’s office.

Under the plan, a vote of no confidence in the prime minister would trigger the automatic dissolution of parliament.

“We will not allow the right to overturn the constitution,” PD leader Elly Schlein told the rally, against a backdrop of Italian, PD and Palestinian flags.

The reform faces an uphill struggle to be written into the constitution.

Any revision must be adopted twice by both houses of parliament and with a minimum of three months between each vote.

If the last two votes fail to produce a two-thirds majority, a referendum must be held. The ruling coalition does not currently have the required votes to see their plans made law.

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POLITICS

Italy’s Meloni breaks silence on youth wing’s fascist comments

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday condemned offensive comments made by members of her far-right party's youth wing to an undercover journalist, breaking weeks of silence over the scandal.

Published: 28 June 2024 16:19 CEST
Italy's Meloni breaks silence on youth wing's fascist comments

The investigation published this month by Italian news website Fanpage included video of members of the National Youth, the junior wing of Brothers of Italy, which has post-fascist roots, showing support for Nazism and fascism.

In images secretly filmed by an undercover journalist in Rome, the members are seen performing fascist salutes, chanting the Nazi “Sieg Heil” greeting and shouting “Duce” in support of the late Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Opposition parties have been calling on Meloni to denounce the behaviour since the first part of the investigation aired on June 13.

Those calls intensified after a second part was published this week with fresh highly offensive comments directed at Jewish people and people of colour.

READ ALSO: Italy’s ruling party shrugs off youth wing’s Fascist salutes

Party youths in particular mocked Ester Mieli, a Brothers of Italy senator and a former spokeswoman for Rome’s Jewish community.

“Whoever expresses racist, anti-Semitic or nostalgic ideas are in the wrong place, because these ideas are incompatible with Brothers of Italy,” Meloni told reporters in Brussels.

“There is no ambiguity from my end on the issue,” she said.

Two officials from the movement have stepped down over the investigation, which also caught one youth party member calling for the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), Elly Schlein, to be “impaled”.

But Meloni also told off journalists for filming young people making offensive comments directed at Jewish people and people of colour, saying they were “methods… of an (authoritarian) regime”.

Fanpage responded that it was “undercover journalism”.

Meloni was a teenage activist with the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed by Mussolini supporters after World War II.

Brothers of Italy traces its roots to the MSI.

The most right-wing leader to take office since 1945, Meloni has sought to distance herself from her party’s legacy without entirely renouncing it. She kept the party’s tricolour flame logo – which was also used by MSI and inspired France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen when he created the far-right National Front party in 1972.

The logo’s base, some analysts say, represents Mussolini’s tomb, which tens of thousands of people visit every year.

Several high-ranking officials in the party do not shy away from their admiration of the fascist regime, which imposed anti-Semitic laws in 1938.

Brothers of Italy co-founder and Senate president Ignazio La Russa collects Mussolini statues.

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