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POLITICS

Italy scraps abuse of office crime as opposition cries foul

Italy's magistrates and opposition parties denounced the repeal of the crime of abuse of office on Thursday, calling it a gift to the mafia and corrupt officials.

Published: 12 July 2024 09:54 CEST
A view of Italy's upper house of parliament
A view of Italy's upper house of parliament, located at Madama Palace in Rome. Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP

The decriminalisation measure was part of a package of justice reforms that passed the Chamber of Deputies by 199 votes to 102 on Wednesday.

The reform was spearheaded by Forza Italia, the party founded by former premier Silvio Berlusconi – whose long political career was marked by endless legal cases and accusations of cronyism and corruption.

READ ALSO: What are the controversial reforms Italians are protesting against?

Promoters of the reform argued that the law deterred public officials from making decisions involving tenders out of fear of being accused of abuse of office.

They also pointed to the fact that 80 percent of legal proceedings involving the crime were dismissed, and innocent officials disgraced.

The Italian legal code will retain anti-corruption laws linked to public contracts, though more restrictively worded.

“Illicit behaviour will continue to be prosecuted – there are still instruments in the penal code,” said Mariastella Gelmini, a former minister under Berlusconi who is now in a small centrist party.

READ ALSO: Rome in push to decriminalise abuse of office despite corruption fears

Also voting for the reform was the far-right Brothers of Italy and League parties, headed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini respectively.

Three centrist parties also voted for the reform.

The Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and the Greens and Left Alliance voted against it, holding up posters in parliament on Wednesday reading “Impunity for white-collar workers, shame on you!”

The respected former anti-mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho told the Corriere della Sera daily on Wednesday that citizens reporting public corruption “will no longer be protected by the law”.

“The citizen who must report the violation of the rules of a tender, or the bypassing of a hospital’s waiting lists or the illegal concession given to a neighbour to build where he couldn’t, will no longer have criminal protection,” he said.

He said that while serving as a prosecutor in Calabria – a poor southern region whose powerful ‘Ndrangheta mafia is notorious for infiltrating public institutions and rigging tenders – “the mayors told us that thanks to the abuse of office [crime], they could say no to the ‘Ndrangheta’.”

“They said they couldn’t break the rules or they would be convicted.”

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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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