Tag: Italy

Human rights groups have expressed outrage at an Italian agreement to send immigrants back to Libya without screening them for asylum claims, tarnishing Muammar Gaddafi's "historic" visit to Italy, which ends on 12 June.

The electoral campaign in Italy is totally undemocratic and there is no rule of law under Berlusconi, former European commissioner Emma Bonino, who has begun a hunger strike in Rome, told EurActiv in a telephone interview yesterday (3 June).

This week, nine of the EU's 27 member states are due to hold domestic votes at the same time as the European Parliament poll, including in three of the EU's largest countries. While critics allege that twinning elections confuses European issues, defenders argue that it should increase voter turnout.

A descendant of Italy's royal family, Prince Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy, announced yesterday (27 April) that he would stand as a candidate in June's elections to the European Parliament.

Banking on remaining the largest group in the EU assembly after the June elections, the centre-right EPP-ED group is already delving into its pool of delegates to select the appropriate candidate to nominate for the Parliament presidency: will it be Poland's Jerzy Buzek or Italy's Mario Mauro?

Lívia Járóka, a Hungarian MEP from the centre-right EPP-ED group, spoke to EurActiv Hungary in an interview about Italy's Roma fingerprinting measures. [Note: Following a mistranslation from the original version in Hungarian, EurActiv.com has modified parts of this interview. The following text has been corrected and is the exact verbatim version, translated into English.]

Europe's human rights watchdog has issued an unusually strong-worded statement hinting that a plan by the Italian authorities to fingerprint Roma amounts to fascism.

Powerful advisers around President Mikheil Saakashvili appear increasingly convinced that a military operation in Abkhazia is "feasible and necessary", according to a fresh report from the International Crisis Group (ICG).

European leaders should be more energetic in warning the Italian Government about hate rhetoric against immigrants, says Romanian Socialist MEP Adrian Severin in an interview with EurActiv.

Visiting Brussels to lobby for the election of his city as European Capital of Culture for 2013, Mayor of Marseille and Vice-President of the French senate Jean-Claude Gaudin praised the EU's initiative, which he says has an enormous and long-standing impact on the cities selected.

In a last-minute change to its agenda, the European Parliament has invited the Commission to speak on the situation of Roma in Europe. Today's debate is expected to highlight a clash of opinions between the plenary's two major political groups.

By further extending Franco Frattini's unpaid leave, Commission President José Manuel Barroso cleared the way for incoming Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to nominate his protégé, MEP Antonio Tajani, as his successor.

The current political crisis in Italy may turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the country in years – provided that it brings about long-overdue recognition that traditional left-versus-right politics in the country is "chronically incapable of delivering change" and new approaches are needed, claims Wolfgang Münchau in a Eurointelligence commentary.

Parts of Silvio Berlusconi's television empire are under attack after a ruling of the European Court of Justice established the 'discriminatory nature' of the Italian frequency allocation system.

Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy, has called a vote of confidence in Parliament after the departure of a junior government partner left his centre-left coalition without a clear majority in the Senate.

The government of former Commission president Romano Prodi passed a crucial confidence vote in the Italian Senate, with a tight majority of 162 votes to 157.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi handed in his resignation on 21 February 2007, after far-left members of the Senate defeated proposals to keep troops in Afghanistan and extend a US military base in Italy.

Boosted by a strong European troop presence in Lebanon, Javier Solana wants to push for a return to the pre-1967 war borders.

Italy's new Prime Minister and former Commission President Romano Prodi brings a former Commissioner and an ex-leader of the ECB into the nation's 61st government since World War Two.

Political commentators agree that the narrow victory of Romano Prodi in the Italian elections might lead to new instability in the country. Mr Berlusconi, in the meantime, still contests the outcome of the elections and is proposing a Germany-inspired "Grand coalition".

First exit polls published at 3pm today indicate that the Italian two-day elections might have been won by the Ulivo coalition of former Commission President Romano Prodi but, in the past, exit polls in Italy have not been very reliable.

In Rome, top election contenders Berlusconi and Prodi trade punches in a TV debate on the economy. Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU finance ministers contend that Italy is on the right track with its public finances after all.

Less than two months before national elections, the rise in the cost of importing oil and gas in 2005 has led to a 10 billion euro Italian trade deficit.

Major reforms are underway at the Bank of Italy as pressure mounts for the embattled governor Antonio Fazio to resign.