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MILAN

It’s official: Milan Malpensa has been renamed Silvio Berlusconi Airport

Italy officially renamed its second-largest airport after the controversial former premier on Thursday "with immediate effect", despite growing calls to scrap the plan.

Published: 11 July 2024 17:27 CEST
It's official: Milan Malpensa has been renamed Silvio Berlusconi Airport
Italy's government has renamed an airport in honour of former premier Silvio Berlusconi. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP)

Milan’s Malpensa airport – Italy’s second-largest after Rome Fiumicino – has been officially renamed after former premier Silvio Berlusconi, according to a statement from Italy’s transport ministry cited by Italian media.

“Milan Malpensa airport is officially dedicated to the memory of President Silvio Berlusconi with the following name: International Airport Milan Malpensa – ‘Silvio Berlusconi’,” the statement read.

The ministry said the change had been confirmed by civil aviation authority Enac and would take immediate effect, though the airport’s management had yet to change the signs.

Deputy premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, a longtime political ally of Berlusconi, wrote of his “great satisfaction for a great Italian” on Twitter on Thursday after he personally approved the change.

The confirmation came after almost a week of protests from opposition politicians, who argued that Berlusconi’s scandal-plagued political career and divisive personal life made the name change inappropriate.

A petition on Change.org had meanwhile attracted more than 120,000 signatures as of Thursday afternoon, calling on the government to cancel the plan to name the transport hub after “such a divisive and controversial figure”.

Following the confirmation on Thursday, the opposition Democratic Party (PD) called on Salvini in parliament to “clarify what procedure was followed for the renaming of the Malpensa airport to Silvio Berlusconi” and to explain why laws “requiring a period of 10 years from the death of the person before naming a public place” were “not respected”, Rai reported.

The decision came just over a year after Berlusconi’s death in June 2023, aged 86.

Billionaire Berlusconi had strong ties to Milan but remains a highly divisive figure.

While some Italians view him as a charming, self-made businessman, others slam him as an international embarrassment, particularly due to his many legal woes and sexual scandals.

In 2013, he was sentenced to seven years in jail for paying for sex with a 17-year-old starlet known as “Ruby the Heart-Stealer”, though that conviction was later overturned.

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POLITICS

Italy PM states ‘determined’ support as Zelensky presses allies

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reaffirmed her strong support for Ukraine Saturday after talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, as he visited allies to press for more weapons to fight Russia.

Published: 7 September 2024 16:35 CEST
Italy PM states 'determined' support as Zelensky presses allies

“We must not give up on Ukraine,” Meloni said after the meeting on the sidelines of an economic forum in Cernobbio, northern Italy, which focused on reconstruction and efforts to end the war with Russia.

Zelensky had on Friday addressed the European House-Ambrosetti forum, hours after pressing for more weapons at a meeting of allies at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Washington unveiled $250 million in new military aid.

Meloni’s government — which this year holds the rotating G7 presidency — has been among the strongest supporters of Ukraine since Russian forces invaded in February 2022.

READ ALSO: Zelensky meets Meloni in Italy, presses for more arms

But some members of her coalition government — notably League leader Matteo Salvini, who has a history of warm ties with Moscow — are less enthusiastic.

Rome has sent weapons to Kyiv, but has said these should be used only on Ukrainian territory, not to attack Russia itself.

In her address to the forum on Saturday, Meloni said the position of EU and NATO member Italy on Ukraine was “extremely serious, determined and clear”.

She addressed members of the Italian public who are “scared, legitimately worried about the war”, but urged them not to “fall into the trap of Russian propaganda” in believing Ukraine’s fate was sealed.

Helping Ukraine fight back against its vastly more powerful neighbour had created the “stalemate” conditions in which peace could be discussed, she said.

And she warned that allowing Ukraine to fall to Russian aggression “will not bring peace, it will bring chaos” and economic consequences “more serious that what it costs today to support Ukraine”.

More weapons

In Germany on Friday, where he also met Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Zelensky urged Kyiv’s supporters to provide more weapons and follow through on previous commitments, saying: “The number of air-defence systems that have not been delivered is significant.”

And after Ukraine’s surprise push into Russia’s Kursk region last month, he again called for restrictions to be lifted on the use of long-range Western weapons.

At Cernobbio, he assured Italy that the weapons would only be used to hit military targets.

In their talks Saturday, Meloni said she had also discussed with Zelensky a planned meeting in Italy next year on reconstructing Ukraine.

And she “reiterated the centrality of support for Ukraine in the agenda of the Italian G7 presidency”, according to her office.

“I thank Giorgia and the Italian people for their support and joint efforts in restoring a just peace,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on X after the talks, posting a video of the pair hugging.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — who upset his EU counterparts and Zelensky by meeting Putin in Moscow in July — also addressed the Cernobbio forum on Friday.

The Ukrainian president rejected Orban’s calls for a ceasefire, saying that Putin had never respected earlier accords.

Zelensky’s visits to Italy and Germany came just days after one of the deadliest strikes of the war and as Russian forces make battlefield gains.

Some 55 people were killed and 300 wounded in a Russian missile strike on Tuesday on the city of Poltava.

Meanwhile Moscow’s forces advance in the Donbas, with Putin on Thursday declaring that capturing the eastern area was his “primary objective” in the conflict.

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