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PROTESTS

‘Betrayed by Europe’: Italian farmers step up protests

Dozens of Italian farmers staged another protest with tractors near Milan on Tuesday, the latest in a series of small demonstrations across the country driven by fear over their livelihoods.

Published: 30 January 2024 14:01 CET
'Betrayed by Europe': Italian farmers step up protests
Tractors parked along the road at a protest near the highway in Melegnano, near Milan, on January 30, 2023. Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP.

Impromptu protests have sprung up across Italy in recent days, from Sicily to Trento, with reports of convoys blocking roads now regular occurrences – although they have yet to reach the levels of farmer demonstrations in France, Germany or Belgium.

“We are ready to block everything betrayed by Europe” declared one placard at the protest near Melegnano outside Milan.

READ ALSO: Farmers’ protests block roads in Italy as unrest spreads in Europe

The protesters said they were angry about European Union regulations, and the impact of inflation and taxes on their products. They have demanded that their mortgages be suspended.

“Europe imposes rules on us that make no sense. We can no longer make a living… we want to make more money and have our products valued for what they are,” said Luisito Naldi, one of the organisers of protests in northern Italy.

“We’re tired,” he told AFP by telephone, saying that things had become so difficult that some farmers in the south were committing suicide.

He said they were seeking a meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government.

“We are protesting for the same reasons that they demonstrate in France, in Germany, Poland and Romania”, said Naldi, adding that “the demonstrations will continue until they invite us to Rome”.

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ROME

Rome square filled with coffins in protest over Italy’s workplace deaths

A thousand coffins filled one of Rome's most famous squares on Tuesday as a trade union made a powerful statement on Italy's high number of deaths in accidents at work.

Published: 19 March 2024 17:01 CET
Rome square filled with coffins in protest over Italy's workplace deaths

“Every year, one thousand people go to work and don’t come home,” read a large sign displayed next to the 1,041 cardboard coffins set up around the obelisk in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo.

“Zero is still too far away,” read another sign in the square as curious tourists took snapshots.

Last year, 1,041 people died in workplace accidents in Italy.

“We brought these coffins here to raise awareness, to remind everyone of the need to act, to not forget those who have lost their lives,” Pierpaolo Bombardini, general secretary of the UIL union behind the protest told AFPTV.

The protest was also intended “to ask the government and politicians to do something concrete to prevent these homicides” he added.

“Because these are homicides. When safety rules are violated, they are not accidents, but homicides.”

Cardboard coffins fill Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on March 19th in a protest by the Italian Labor Union (UIL) intended to draw public attention to the number of deaths at work in Italy. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP)

Fatal accidents in the workplace regularly make headlines in the Italian press, each time sparking a debate on risk prevention. Most recently a concrete structure collapsed on the construction site of a supermarket in Florence last month, killing five people working at the site.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni denounced it as “another story… of people who go out to work, who simply go out to do their job, and do not come home”.

Bombardini called for an increase in the number of inspections and inspectors.

“Companies that violate safety standards must be closed down,” he added. According to Eurostat’s most recent statistics, from 2021, on EU-wide workplace fatalities, Italy had 3.17 deaths per 100,000 workers.

That was above the European average of 2.23 per 100,000 works but behind France at 4.47 and Austria at 3.44.

The European Union’s three worst-faring countries are Lithuania, Malta and Latvia, while work-related fatalities are lowest in the Netherlands, Finland and Germany.

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