These people face 20 years in jail for saving lives at sea

These people face 20 years in jail for saving lives at sea

Post By World Immigration, Italy, Migrants, NGO, sea rescue

Even as outrage simmers over the hundreds of migrants dying at sea every year off Europe’s coast, rescuers are still being persecuted for helping save lives.

Kathrin Schmidt helped save some 14,000 people who made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to seek safety and a better future in Europe between 2016 and 2017.

Now, she faces charges that could see her behind bars for as long as 20 years.

Schmidt was head of operations aboard Iuventa, a rescue ship helping migrants in distress in the Med, when the vessel was seized by Italian authorities and her life-saving work abruptly interrupted.

Together with several of her colleagues, she was accused of “aiding and abetting illegal immigration” – a charge that carries a 20-year prison sentence.

At least 20 people, including NGO workers from other groups and four Iuventa crew members, are still involved in an ongoing trial in Italy.

A ‘politically motivated’ trial

Talking to Euronews, Schmidt is frustrated that, years later, she’s still stuck in a trial that’s moving forward slowly, but in a direction she finds “hard to buy into.”

“The whole trial is insane,” she said.

“They’re accusing us of cooperating with smugglers, of working clandestinely with underground organisations, saying that the people we rescued didn’t need rescuing.”

“They said that there was no need to rescue them because those were arranged handovers of people – but what we’re talking about were flimsy, overcrowded, tiny rubber boats or wooden boats that had hundreds of people on them, with a few people in critical medical conditions and no water or food,” she added.

According to Schmidt, the trial against her and the other rescuers is “very politically motivated.”

“There’s a political agenda behind the criminal law and the proceedings,” she claimed.

The Italian government has defended its harsh policies on illegal migration, and those helping migrants off its coasts, saying that the country is subjected to unbearable pressure from the surging number of people arriving on its shores, with little to no help from other EU countries.

Another EU country which reports a high number of migrants arriving in its territory every year is Greece, where the current government has also taken a harsh, criminalising stance on migrations.

On 14 June, an overcrowded fishing boat carrying an estimated 750 people capsized off the coast of Greece in one of the biggest tragedies in the Mediterranean in years.

Officials retrieved the 82 bodies, while hundreds are still considered missing. Only 104 people aboard survived.

Greek authorities, taking a strict approach to illegal migration, have been harshly criticised and accused of not acting quickly enough to help the clearly struggling vessel. Testimonies from survivors said the Greek Coast Guard had tied up the vessel and tried to pull it before it capsized — a move that’s highly unusual in these cases and which witnesses said caused the boat to sway.

Greek authorities denied this happened and defended the actions of the Coast Guard. Talking to state broadcaster ERT, Hellenic Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou said that.,“There was no effort to tug the boat.”

He added: “You cannot carry out a violent diversion on such a vessel with so many people on board, without them wanting to, without any sort of cooperation.”

Tiring rescuers down

Schmidt, who before boarding the Iuventa had done work with NGOs helping migrants in Lesbos and the Aegean Sea, wanted to rescue people travelling across the Mediterranean Sea to “do justice to her privilege.”

“You’re in a position where you have the agency to act and to help others – a position of power and privilege that comes with a responsibility,” she said.

Now, she feels like the seizing of the Iuventa and the trial against her took away her freedom of choosing where to work and what to do.

“You could say it has turned my life upside down a little bit, because it has taken the decision away from me of where I want to work or what I want to spend my time doing,” she said.

“The impact of this trial is tremendous, and I find it very important to say that this trial is just one little bit in a context of strategic and systematic criminalisation of people on the move,” she continued.

According to Picum, a network of organisations providing assistance to and advocating for the rights of undocumented migrants in Europe, “the criminalisation of solidarity with migrants remains a widespread phenomenon across the EU.”

The group said that at least 89 people were criminalised in the EU between January 2021 and March 2022 for helping migrants in distress at sea, with most of them being charged with facilitation of entry, transit or stay, or migrant smuggling.

Migrants too have also increasingly been criminalised in countries like Italy and Greece, where they’re seen as a threat to national security rather than asylum seekers in need of assistance.

For Schmidt, getting the charges against her and her colleagues dropped is “not about protecting myself from going to prison,” but to secure a political win that will let people know rescuing migrants at sea is the right thing to do.

“We are living through extremely difficult times in Europe and we are heading into a disaster on all sorts of levels,” she said, adding that persecuting rescuers is a political strategy aimed at exhausting NGOs wanting to help.

The trial has been “draining” and tiring, she confirmed.

“It’s taking resources, time and money and it’s weakening all political structures. [The trial] is a systematic tool that states use to oppress resistance movements, to shut people up and to shut people down.”

Border protection over saving lives

In May, defence lawyers for Schmidt and other rescuers from Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children pushed forward a request to consider the crime of aiding and abetting migration illegal, since this would contradict fundamental rights stated in the Italian Constitution and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

At a hearing last week, an Italian court in Trapani, Sicily, ruled that border protection prevails over human rights, rejecting the defence lawyers’ request.

“We wanted the High Courts to decide once and for all on the balance between border protection and the protection of human beings,” said Francesca Cancellaro, Iuventa’s lawyer.

“But the judge denied Iuventa and everyone this possibility. The decision is unsatisfactory as much for the outcome as for the arguments that support it. But we will certainly not stop here.”

“With so many people desperate enough to risk their lives to access protection and safety in Europe, it is urgent that a reform of the offence of ‘facilitation of irregular migration’ takes place,” Elisa De Pieri, researcher at the Europe regional office of Amnesty International, said commenting on the Italian court’s decision.

There needs to be an “immediate end to its harmful and abusive application to people saving lives,” she added.

But the battle to defend solidarity over border protection continues.

Schmidt doesn’t think she will actually be forced to go to jail for 20 years. “I just don’t see that,” she said with confidence.

The Iuventa ship, meanwhile, has remained blocked in an Italian port for six years now. More than 10,000 people are estimated to have died in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy between 2018 and 2023.

A total of 959 migrants have drowned off the coast of the country or is still considered missing in the months between January and May 2023 alone.

Source link

#people #face #years #jail #saving #lives #sea

Questions mount over latest migrant tragedy in Mediterranean

Post By Politics Africa, Aid and development, Asia, Asylum, borders, cities, Cooperation, Courts, Crisis, Egypt, Elections, Elections in Europe, Greece, Immigration, Italy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Libya, media, Mediterranean Sea, Middle East, Migration, Policy, Refugees, Security, Ylva Johansson

Anger is growing over the handling of a migrant boat disaster off Greece last week that has become one of the biggest tragedies in the Mediterranean in years. The calamity is dominating the country’s political agenda a week ahead of snap elections.

The Hellenic Coast Guard is facing increasing questions over its response to the fishing boat that sank off Greece’s southern peninsula on Wednesday, leading to the death of possibly hundreds of migrants. Nearly 80 people are known to have perished in the wreck and hundreds are still missing, according to the U.N.’s migration and refugee agencies.

Critics say that the Greek authorities should have acted faster to keep the vessel from capsizing. There are testimonies from survivors that the Coast Guard tied up to the vessel and attempted to pull it, causing the boat to sway, which the Greek authorities strongly deny.

The boat may have been carrying as many as 750 passengers, including women and children, according to reports. Many of them were trapped underneath the deck in the sinking, according to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. “The ship was heavily overcrowded,” Frontex said.

About 100 people are known to have survived the sinking. Authorities continued to search for victims and survivors over the weekend.

The disaster may be “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said on Friday. She said there has been a massive increase in the number of migrant boats heading from Libya to Europe since the start of the year.

Frontex said in a statement on Friday that no agency plane or boat was present at the time of the capsizing on Wednesday. The agency said it alerted the Greek and Italian authorities about the vessel after a Frontex plane spotted it, but the Greek officials waved off an offer of additional help.

Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East, Asia and Africa traveled thousands of miles across the Continent hoping to claim asylum.

Migration and border security have been key issues in the Greek political debate. Following Wednesday’s wreck, they have jumped to the top of the agenda, a week before national elections on June 25.

Greece is currently led by a caretaker government. Under the conservative New Democracy administration, in power until last month, the country adopted a tough migration policy. In late May, the EU urged Greece to launch a probe into alleged illegal deportations.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is expected to return to the prime minister’s office after the vote next Sunday, blasted criticism of the Greek authorities, saying it should instead be directed to the human traffickers, who he called “human scums.”

“It is very unfair for some so-called ‘people in solidarity’ [with refugees and migrants] to insinuate that the [Coast Guard] did not do its job. … These people are out there … battling the waves to rescue human lives and protect our borders,” Mitsotakis, who maintains a significant lead in the polls, said during a campaign event in Sparta on Saturday.

The Greek authorities claimed the people on board, some thought to be the smugglers who had arranged the boat from Libya, refused assistance and insisted on reaching Italy. So the Greek Coast Guard did not intervene, though it monitored the vessel for more than 15 hours before it eventually capsized.

“What orders did the authorities have, and they didn’t intervene because one of these ‘scums’ didn’t give them permission?” the left-wing Syriza party said in a statement. “Why was no order given to the lifeboat … to immediately assist in a rescue operation? … Why were life jackets not distributed … and why Frontex assistance was not requested?”

Alarm Phone, a network of activists that helps migrants in danger, said the Greek authorities had been alerted repeatedly many hours before the boat capsized and that there was insufficient rescue capacity.

According to a report by WDR citing migrants’ testimonies, attempts were made to tow the endangered vessel, but in the process the boat began to sway and sank. Similar testimonies by survivors appeared in Greek media.

A report on Greek website news247.gr said the vessel remained in the same spot off the town of Pylos for at least 11 hours before sinking. According to the report, the location on the chart suggests the vessel was not on a “steady course and speed” toward Italy, as the Greek Coast Guard said.

After initially saying that there was no effort to tow the boat, the Hellenic Coast Guard said on Friday that a patrol vessel approached and used a “small buoy” to engage the vessel in a procedure that lasted a few minutes and then was untied by the migrants themselves.

Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou defended the agency. “You cannot carry out a violent diversion on such a vessel with so many people on board, without them wanting to, without any sort of cooperation,” he said.

Alexiou said there is no video of the operation available.

Nine people, most of them from Egypt, were arrested over the capsizing, charged with forming a criminal organization with the purpose of illegal migrant trafficking, causing a shipwreck and endangering life. They will appear before a magistrate on Monday, according to Greek judicial authorities.

“Unfortunately, we have seen this coming because since the start of the year, there was a new modus operandi with these fishing boats leaving from the eastern part of Libya,” the EU’s Johansson told a press conference on Friday. “And we’ve seen an increase of 600 percent of these departures this year,” she added.

Greek Supreme Court Prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos has urged absolute secrecy in the investigations being conducted in relation to the shipwreck.

Thousands of people took to the streets in different cities in Greece last week to protest the handling of the incident and the migration policies of Greece and the EU. More protests were planned for Sunday.

Source link

#Questions #mount #latest #migrant #tragedy #Mediterranean

Berlusconi’s death: How will Italy’s real-life Succession play out?

Post By World Forza-Italia, Italian politics, Italy, Legacy, media, Silvio-Berlusconi

Berlusconi had two kids from his first wife, and three from his second. They will all inherit the empire the media tycoon built from scratch.

Five kids, grown in the shadow of their powerful, wealthy, ruthless father — a man whom the nation looks up to, who’s built a media empire that has hypnotised the entire country, and shaped its politics and destiny.

Five kids who have been raised with a sense of pride for the name they bear, but who have been haunted by one question their whole life: who’s going to be worthy of their father, who’s going to succeed them?

What sounds roughly like the plot of the popular TV show ‘Succession’ is actually the real-life story of Silvio Berlusconi’s five children, who now have to deal with the cumbersome legacy their father left behind.

Much like Logan Roy, the moody tycoon of the HBO show, Berlusconi came from a modest family — a clerk and a housewife — only to become one of the richest and most successful businessmen in his country.

His career began in construction in the 1970s, and continued in the world of television, which he completely revolutionised creating the country’s first private national channel, Canale 5. This would later be incorporated into Mediaset, a network comprising 3 of the 7 national channels — and a powerful instrument for an ambitious man who loved to be loved.

High on the success of his business investments, Berlusconi entered the world of politics, which he dominated for the next 30 years, covering three terms as Italy’s prime minister between 1994 and 2011 amidst scandals, corruption charges, and controversies. He created his own party, Forza Italia, which is currently in the right-wing coalition governing the country.

When Berlusconi’s health started turning for the worse on Monday, Marina (56) and Pier Silvio (54), from the media mogul’s first marriage to Carla Elvira Lucia Dall’Oglio; and Barbara (38), Eleonora (37), and Luigi (34), from his second marriage to Veronica Lario, rushed to his side.

They were there when the larger-than-life politician and businessman who had divided Italy’s public opinion for the last three decades died at the age of 86 on the same day, brought down not by his excesses and bravado, but by leukemia.

Berlusconi’s media empire and his party will now be passed on to them, his five legitimate children. All of them hold a stake in Fininvest, the multi-billion euro media company that the former prime minister created from scratch and which is currently the largest shareholder of Media for Europe, MFE.

The group owns the television network Mediaset and Mondadori, one of Italy’s biggest publishing houses.

Who will take over Berlusconi’s media empire?

Berlusconi’s children each hold a 7.65% stake in Fininvest, according to Italian news media. The media mogul controlled about 61% of holdings in the company, which will now have to be divided among his kids.

But while cynicism, ambition and greed can be learned, the same disposition and hunger for success, and the ability to achieve it that characterised Berlusconi, cannot be inherited. It’s the same lesson that Logan Roy’s kids are taught over and over in ‘Succession’.

None of Berlusconi’s children, who mostly shied away from the media spotlight, have the same energy that their father was able to bring to the Italian public. But at least one of them appears to have the same business instinct: the eldest child, Marina Berlusconi.

The 56-year-old is widely seen as Berlusconi’s natural successor, and people familiar with the matter told Reuters that she is, in fact, going to be inheriting her father’s media empire, though Berlusconi never formally named her his successor.

Together with her brother Pier Silvio, who was put in charge of Mediaset, Marina has been directly involved in running her father’s companies since he entered politics in the early 1990s. She had served as deputy chairperson at Fininvest for nine years and she’s been on the company’s board since 2005.

The three kids Berlusconi had with his second wife, on the other hand, have always been kept at a distance from the family’s company. Barbara and Eleonora have never been given any high-profile executive roles within either Fininvest or Mediaset, though Barbara once took a senior role in running the then-Berlusconi’s football club Milan until it got sold off in 2017.

Luigi, the youngest son, is a board member at Fininvest, representing his family’s side interests in the company together with Barbara. Eleonora is likely the least interested in her father’s legacy, considering she has chosen to give up her last name and goes under ‘Bartolini’, the real name of her mother Veronica Lario, born Miriam Bartolini.

Under Italian law, Berlusconi’s children have a right to inherit two-thirds of his wealth in equal parts — in Fininvest’s case, 8.13% of stakes in the company each. The remaining third can be disposed of as the deceased pleased — which means that Berlusconi could have decided, in his will, to distribute the remaining 33% stake in Fininvest to Marina and Pier Silvio, giving them more power in the company.

As of Tuesday, Berlusconi’s will has not yet been opened or made known to the public.

What is the future of Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia?

An even bigger question mark surrounds the issue of who will inherit the lead of Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia. Many, even within the party, fear that Forza Italia might be dead without Berlusconi, its members scuttling to other right-wing parties like the League of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.

Giovanni Miccichè, a former Berlusconi ally who left Forza Italia to form his own party in 2010, said on Monday Forza Italia had died with the former premier.

But ultimately, the decision to keep the party alive belongs to Berlusconi’s kids, who are inheriting the responsibility of keeping Forza Italia going without the man who’s been its uncontested leader since its creation, and who’s funded the party for the past decade.

“The symbol of Berlusconi’sparty, Forza Italia, now belongs to his heirs – his children,” tweeted Daniele Albertazzi, a politics professor at the University of Surrey, in the UK.

“They are also the ones who would have the means to keep financing it – as [Berlusconi] continued to do throughout the years. Being a personal party, it is now part of [Berlusconi’s] legacy: just like his companies.”

However, Albertazzi said, “the party “was already in terminal decline” before Berlusconi’s death.

“[Berlusconi’s] presence meant it could still attract some votes for a little longer, from people who had got used to supporting it during its golden years,” he tweeted.

“Even if [Berlusconi’s] children decided to keep it going, who’s there to attract votes now?” he added. “Not only he never chose a successor, but there is literally NO-ONE within it today – let alone his children – who has the vision, charisma & knowledge to take this huge task on and try to steady the ship.”

But Albertazzi thinks that Meloni, the current prime minister, will try to keep the party afloat for her own interest. “I would not be surprised if Meloni stepped in to steady the ship and lend a hand, as Forza Italia reps start running around like headless chickens fearing for their future,” he wrote.

“In the immediate future, she does not need the aggravation of the party destabilising the govt by sliding into civil war, as its reps realise they ain’t returning to Parliament…” he added.

Source link

#Berlusconis #death #Italys #reallife #Succession #play

Berlusconi’s death is Europe’s first populist’s final triumph

Post By World Forza-Italia, Italian politics, Italy, Silvio-Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin

Unlike today’s autocrats who make grim threats against the institutions of the rule of law, Berlusconi brushed them aside in a light-hearted and smiling manner, with jokes, silk neckerchiefs, and catchy ditties — an authentic made-in-Italy product, ready to be exported, Giorgio Fruscione writes.

On Monday, Silvio Berlusconi departed from this world differently from the way he first appeared in our lives when he entered our living rooms through his TV stations, virtually sitting by our side while we ate dinner.

His 1994 public address declaring his “discesa in campo,” or descent into the field of politics, saw him make a further promise to be among the people, with the people, and for the people.

But for Berlusconi, the nearly three decades in politics would be thirty years he always lived above us.

His death was, perhaps, the only real thing he had done “as one of us”, one of the mantras of his political life, the one that in Italy gave rise to two malign trends of our politics: populism and anti-politics.

It is not completely true to say that with the death of Berlusconi, an era ends. The era that began with Berlusconi is more alive than ever.

A list of grievances amid the grieving

The populist rhetoric, the opening of the door and leaving it ajar for the extreme right, the hatred for independent journalists, the intolerance for judges, misogyny and measuring the value of women by the length of their skirts, rampant tax evasion and flirtations with autocrats halfway around the world — these are stronger today than they were in the early 1990s when the fear of the spectre of communism was still expanding.

Having come into the field to ward off the arrival of the communist enemy that had never been in power in Italy — nor would ever get anywhere near the offices in Chigi and Quirinale — Berlusconi used his economic power and a media monopoly to promote his own political initiative as a sacrifice in the name of the collective good, while the opposite was true: opportunism for personal gain.

This is not the place to recall his entrepreneurial background prior to his arrival in politics but rather the moment to consider Berlusconi as the precursor of authoritarianism as we know it today — that of Victor Orban, Donald Trump and, to a degree, even Vladimir Putin.

How much did normalising Putin cost us collectively?

It is no coincidence that Berlusconi considered the Russian president a great friend to the very end, swapping wine bottles even during the war and in defiance of sanctions.

After all, Berlusconi ended the “real one,” the actual Cold War — this, according to him — with the Pratica di Mare agreement between Russia and NATO during the 2002 Rome summit.

The handshake between George W Bush and Putin at the summit actually normalised relations between the West and Moscow, whose political methods became acceptable after that. So did Berlusconi’s.

When in 2008 Berlusconi mimed a machine gun in response to a journalist who dared to ask Putin a question, it was not just a joke — after all, Russian independent journalist Anna Politkovskaya had been murdered in Moscow only a year and a half earlier — but further legitimisation of an authoritarian system with which the West deluded itself into thinking it could live with by importing gas.

What we do in life echoes in eternity

The ripple effects of his influence on the political events of today are aplenty. And many of the political actors behind them are the spiritual heirs of Berlusconism, especially outside of Italy.

Isn’t the approach with which Trump is defending himself against ever-growing accusations by calling them “farcical” and politically motivated similar to that with which Berlusconi used to attack judges by calling them ”red togas”, a provocative reference to Roman Empire’s magistrates who held both judicial and executive powers?

Isn’t the control over state media and the main private channels by Victor Orban in Hungary a model set by Berlusconi, who ruled through three public television channels in parallel with his three Mediaset channels?

Aren’t attacks against independent journalists the prerogative of leaders who dream of their own “Bulgarian Edict”, a watershed moment for media freedom in Italy in 2002 when, during an official visit to Sofia, Berlusconi’s criticism got journalists Enzo Biagi, Michele Santoro and comedian Daniele Luttazzi removed from the air at the public broadcaster, RAI?

Doing what one wants and selling it as good for the people

Today, those mourning Berlusconi are mainly his followers and not his actual voters.

It is rather those leaders all over the world who, using the self-made man spiel, convey the same precarious assurances and illusory successes to the people.

All that just to leave them with higher public debt, tax evasion that remains legitimised and almost incentivised, and wages that stopped rising just as Berlusconi descended to the field to make us all better off.

But unlike today’s autocrats who make grim threats against the institutions of the rule of law, Berlusconi brushed them aside in a light-hearted and smiling manner, with jokes, silk neckerchiefs, and catchy ditties — an authentic made-in-Italy product, ready to be exported.

Berlusconism, after all, is doing what one wants and what is convenient for one’s business, finding a way around rules and institutions, and then propagandising all this as a universal and sustainable social and economic model.

It is the heavy-handed imposition of the private over the public, a form of liberalism where the increase in social divisions has been compounded by scorn towards the other gender.

It is the notion of a country-slash-enterprise ruled by a tycoon for the prime minister where women have been reduced exclusively to objects of pleasure, going to the parties at his villa San Martino in Arcore or dancing in prime time as various showgirls on his TV channels whose ratings corresponded to their appearance.

‘A great statesman, for better or worse’

In a country where, culturally and habitually, death turns anyone into a heroic martyr, the end of Berlusconi will not put an end to his way of doing politics, but it will monumentalise him in people’s memory as “a great statesman”.

It will historicise him, making him a man who “for better or worse” contributed to the country’s history.

And finally, it will humanise him, showing his Mediaset presenters’ live tears and flowers near the hospital in Milan where he passed away as the tangible sign of a man who was loved by the people not in spite of, but precisely because he stood above them, serving them for his own personal interests.

That is the social and political model that is now more entrenched than ever in Italy and beyond. And that is why Berlusconi’s death is not the end of an era, but his actual triumph.

Giorgio Fruscione is a political analyst and a freelance contributor to several domestic and international media outlets. He is a Research Fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), with his analyses focusing mainly on Western Balkans politics and geopolitics.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

Source link

#Berlusconis #death #Europes #populists #final #triumph

Silvio Berlusconi, master populist who dominated Italian politics, dies at 86

Post By World Europe, Features, Italian politics, Italy, obituary, Silvio-Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media tycoon and four-time prime minister who brushed off a litany of legal battles and sex scandals to dominate Italian public life for more than two decades, has died in Milan aged 86.

Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since World War II, Berlusconi had been admitted to Milan’s San Raffaele hospital on Friday for what aides said were pre-planned tests related to leukemia. His admission came just three weeks after he was discharged following a six-week stay at San Raffaele hospital, during which time doctors revealed he had a rare type of blood cancer.

His death was announced on June 12 by Italian media.

Long the country’s richest man, Berlusconi made his fortune in real estate before going on to build Italy’s biggest media empire, Mediaset, which he later enlisted to facilitate his swashbuckling entry into politics.

The scandal-plagued tycoon infamous for the debauchery of his “bunga bunga” parties transformed and monopolised Italian politics at the turn of the century, introducing a skewed left-right divide that pitted his conservative camp against the centre-left anti-Berlusconi front.

Known as “Il Cavaliere” (The Knight), among many other nicknames, he was admired and reviled in equal measure at home – but was mostly derided abroad. After a decade in power, The Economist magazine famously ran a cover story on his record in office with the headline, “The man who screwed an entire country”.

Despite the mockery, his unbounded bravado, unique brand of politics and tumultuous career became a playbook for ambitious politicians around the world, making him a precursor to contemporary populism.

Long before the likes of Donald Trump played the “anti-system” card, Berlusconi had successfully cast himself as the bête noire of a declining and discredited political class. Accused of being as narcissistic, sexist and self-serving as the billionaire former US president, Berlusconi also played an equally piteous victim, railing against the judiciary and once claiming he was “the most persecuted person in the history of the world and the history of man”.

He also played a more inveterate jester than Britain’s Boris Johnson, entertaining Italy as much as he ran it; a more polished macho than his friend Vladimir Putin, adding an affable, cultured touch to his personality cult; and a subtler strategist than Matteo Salvini, the loudmouthed nationalist who briefly supplanted him as leader of the country’s right-wing camp – only to be overtaken in turn by the far right’s Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s current prime minister and once a junior minister under Berlusconi.

02:54

The most talked-about Italian politician since Benito Mussolini, Berlusconi was once described as a “disease that can only be cured through vaccination” by the country’s most respected postwar journalist, the late Indro Montanelli. The vaccine, Montanelli argued on the eve of the 2001 general election, involved “a healthy injection of Berlusconi in the prime minister’s seat, Berlusconi in the president’s seat, Berlusconi in the pope’s seat or wherever else he may want. Only after that will we be immune.”

Montanelli was wrong about immunity, and so were the many other pundits who wrote off the Cavaliere, time and time again, even as his political career – and popularity – powered on.

The dream of America

Berlusconi was born on September 29, 1936, the first of three children raised in a middle-class family in Milan, Italy’s financial capital. Like many of his generation, he was evacuated during World War II and lived with his mother in a village some distance from the city.

The handsome and genial youth made his first money selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and occasionally singing in nightclubs and cruise ships with his friend Fedele Confalonieri, who would remain his loyal business partner to the very end.

After graduating in law in 1961, Berlusconi began a career in construction, establishing himself as a residential housing developer in the Milan area. He got his big break at the start of the 1970s with the construction of Milano 2, a self-contained town his Edilnord company built in the suburbs, soon to be followed by its twin, Milano 3.

With their artificial lakes, sports facilities, churches and shopping malls, Berlusconi’s model towns were designed as the Italian version of American suburbia – functional environments dedicated to work, leisure and watching television.

“I’m in favour of all things American before even knowing what they are,” Berlusconi once told Britain’s Times newspaper. His next challenge was to ensure his fellow Italians felt likewise, embracing American popular culture through soap operas, commercials and chat shows.

Milano 2 is where the Cavaliere built his media empire, Mediaset, launching Italy’s first private channels with the help of his politician friends, chief of whom was the powerful Socialist leader Bettino Craxi, a former prime minister whose name would later become synonymous with corruption.

The leafy suburb is also where Berlusconi’s own four-decade-long battle with the judiciary began in the late 1970s, with the first investigations into Edilnord’s shady funding. The cases were soon shelved, though it later emerged that the investigators had been given senior positions in Berlusconi’s Fininvest holding.

In the following years, several former mafia bosses were quoted as saying that Edilnord had received generous funding from criminal organisations based in Sicily, via Berlusconi’s close friend Marcello Dell’Utri, who was later convicted of collusion with the mafia in a separate case.

Berlusconi himself began feeling the heat in the early ’90s when a sweeping corruption investigation destroyed Italy’s Christian Democracy party, which had ruled the country since the war, along with his friend and protector Craxi. But instead of hiding in the shadows, the Cavaliere sensed an opportunity.

In 1992, at the height of the “Clean Hands” corruption inquiries, the media tycoon was asked whether he would consider running for mayor in his hometown of Milan, where a Berlusconi-owned football club won its 12th league title that year. His answer was an accurate forecast of the years to come.

“Do you know that every day I receive 400 letters from housewives thanking me for freeing them from their daily boredom with my television programmes?” Berlusconi replied. “If I entered politics with this electoral base, I wouldn’t go for mayor. I’d build a party like Reagan’s, win the elections and become prime minister.”

Go, Italy!

Two decades before France’s Emmanuel Macron seemingly pulled a political party out of his hat and conjured an Élysée Palace victory, Berlusconi, a media mogul with no political credentials, pulled the same trick in Italy – and in half the time. Staffed with marketing strategists in business suits, Forza Italia (Go, Italy) was just five months old when its founder swept to power in the spring of 1994 on promises of lower taxes, less encroachment from the state and restored pride in the Italian nation.

Hailed by his followers as “the Lord’s anointed”, the media mogul said he felt compelled to enter politics in order to bar the post-Communist left from power. Critics, however, claimed Berlusconi was primarily motivated by his desire to protect his own businesses – a critique borne out by the many bespoke laws his successive governments would force through parliament over the years.

While his first, grossly inexperienced government soon collapsed, the tycoon politician would go on to dominate Italian politics for the next two decades, bouncing back with further electoral triumphs in 2001 and 2008. Despite leading an unwieldy coalition with southern-based post-fascists and far-right Northern League separatists, he became the only prime minister to serve through a full five-year legislature, between 2001 and 2006 – no small achievement in a country that has known 67 different governments since 1945.

It would take a combination of the eurozone’s debt crisis, the loss of his parliamentary majority following a party split, and lurid accounts of “bunga bunga” orgies featuring showgirls and prostitutes at his private residence to finally push Berlusconi out of office – for the third and last time – in 2011, amid the jeers of protesters gathered in central Rome to celebrate his departure.

Earlier that year, Berlusconi suffered a major blow when Italy’s Constitutional Court struck down part of a law granting him temporary immunity. After years of being cleared of multiple charges – often because the statute of limitations had expired or because his government had changed the law, for instance decriminalising the practise of false accounting – his run of luck came to an end in 2012 when he was sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud and barred from public office.

But because Berlusconi was over 75 at the time, he was instead handed community service, working four hours a week with elderly dementia patients at a Catholic care home near Milan.

The next year, he was also found guilty of paying for sex with underage prostitute Karima “Ruby” El Mahroug, 17, a guest at his “bunga bunga” parties, and then abusing his power to have her released from jail. The conviction was later overturned, though Berlusconi faced further charges for allegedly bribing a witness in the trial.

In the meantime, his second wife Veronica Lario, with whom he had three of his five children, decided to divorce him after he was photographed at the 18th birthday party of an aspiring model who referred to him as “Papi”.

Berlusconi’s enduring support

Despite his rapidly declining fortunes, Berlusconi made another comeback ahead of the 2013 general election, overturning a 15-point gap in the polls to come within a whisker of a stunning election win. Though he was barred from office, the result cemented his role as the central powerbroker in Italian

Reflecting on the tycoon’s enduring support, Maurizio Cotta, a professor of politics at the University of Siena, said Berlusconi understood certain aspects of the Italian psyche better than anyone else. Berlusconi spoke “alla pancia” (to the stomach) of Italians, Cotta said. “He knew their weak spots – their fear of discipline, of the state, of losing their homes, of being caught with their hands in the till.”

When the head of aerospace giant Finmeccanica was arrested ahead of the 2013 election for bribing Indian officials to secure a huge helicopter contract, Berlusconi alone of all politicians blamed the magistrates for hurting Italian jobs. “Sometimes you simply cannot sell anything without a bribe,” he remarked.

Never mind the repeated trials, the laws passed to protect himself and his businesses, the lurid campaign jokes about how often a girl would “come” or the fact that he personally intervened to have Mahroug released from custody – claiming he thought she was the niece of Egypt’s then-president Hosni Mubarak – almost a quarter of Italian voters still chose his party, and nearly a third backed his coalition.

“Berlusconi might cause every possible disaster, but he speaks the language and knows the interests of his ‘social bloc’,” wrote Perangelo Battista in the Corriere della Sera, Italy’s best-known daily, referring to the tax-averse small and medium-sized businesses that formed the backbone of his support.

At 81 and just 18 months after undergoing open-heart surgery, the Cavaliere was somehow back on his horse for the 2018 general election, still cobbling together unlikely coalitions and promising Italians a rosy future with unshakeable optimism. His party did reasonably well, though it was overtaken on the right by Salvini’s eurosceptic and anti-immigrant Lega party.

The next year, with his ban on public office lifted, Berlusconi won himself a seat in the European Parliament – 18 years after he delivered one of his most infamous lines there in a slur aimed at German MEP Martin Schulz.

“I know that in Italy there is a man producing a film on Nazi concentration camps,” Berlusconi said as he took over the EU’s rotating presidency in June 2003. “I shall put you forward for the role of a kapo (prison guard) – you would be perfect.”

Berlusconi went on to win yet another general election in September 2022 – this time as an unlikely junior partner in Italy’s most right-wing ruling coalition since Mussolini. From the get-go, he proved to be a troublesome ally for the far right’s Meloni, bragging about vodka gifts from Putin and blaming Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia’s unprovoked invasion of his country.

The man who claimed credit for “ending the Cold War” was in and out of hospital in his twilight years, battling a string of illnesses. His tenacity earned him another nickname – “the Immortal” – as well as the bipartisan respect that had eluded him throughout his career.

Three years before his final stay at Milan’s San Rafaele clinic, Berlusconi overcame a severe case of Covid-19 at the height of the pandemic. After testing positive for the deadly respiratory disease along with dozens of Sardinia jet-setters in August 2020, he responded with characteristic braggadocio.

“I’ve been diagnosed with one of the strongest viral loads in all of Italy,” he said in a phone call with supporters from his hospital bed in Milan. “It just goes to show I’m still the number one.”

Source link

#Silvio #Berlusconi #master #populist #dominated #Italian #politics #dies

After yet another murder, Italy moves to boost laws protecting women

Post By World domestic violence, femicide, Feminicide, Italy, Violence against women, women

After the latest murder of a woman by her partner, Italy is revisiting its laws protecting women from gender-based violence. But experts say new legislative measures are not what the country needs.

Only days after a pregnant woman was brutally killed by her boyfriend in a murder that shocked and outraged the nation, Italy has introduced stricter measures to try to stop the steady rise in the number of femicides in the country.

Giulia Tramontano, 29, was seven months pregnant when she was stabbed to death by her partner and baby’s father, 30-year-old Alessandro Impagnatiello, who was reportedly in a secret relationship with another woman.

The gruesome details of the murder and Impagnatiello’s attempts to conceal her body, together with his efforts to deflect attention from the police investigation, have contributed to making Tramontano’s murder a major case for Italian media and the public.

The woman’s death, and that of her unborn baby, caused a wave of emotion that reached the government, with the Cabinet passing a new legislative package on Wednesday evening which includes measures to speed up legal processes involving victims of gender-based violence and extend the protection of women who have suffered stalking.

How bad is gender-based violence in Italy?

While in Italy the number of homicides has been generally declining since the 1990s, the number of women killed by a family member or a partner has remained high, and, proportionately, has grown in recent years.

“The situation has been stagnant for years,” Elena Biaggioni, vice president of D.i. Re, a national association managing over 100 anti-violence centres and 60 women’s shelters across the country, told Euronews. “What we’ve seen is an increase in the more violent cases.”

According to the latest data from Italy’s Ministry of the Interior, out of a total of 319 homicides in the country in 2022, 125 — about 39% — were femicides, intentional killings with a gender-related motivation.

Almost 74% of these femicides — 103 in total — happened in a domestic environment, in line with global data which shows that women are more likely to die at the hand of a family member or a partner than a stranger, unlike men.

According to the group Femminicidio Italia, which collects data on femicides in Italy, there have been at least 18 victims of femicides in Italy since the beginning of the year.

“Violence against women is a phenomenon that’s more or less present in all countries, caused by structural causes like the disparity between men and women, stereotypes and prejudices,” Biaggioni said. “But of course in countries where there’s a macho culture and sexism is stronger, like Italy, this violence is justified in a different way.”

“The phenomenon is really serious, and it’s rooted in our experience as a country,” Irene Pellizzone, professor of constitutional law at the University of Milan, told Euronews. “Official data from 2014 showed that one in four women aged between 25 and 75 has suffered some form of gender violence, and we have no evidence that this percentage has declined.”

The numbers around violence against women in Italy could be even worse than reported, Pellizzone said, as there’s a lack of data on episodes involving disabled women, migrant women and women who suffer from drug addiction.

Do the government’s new measures go far enough?

Under the new law, which still needs to be approved by Parliament before coming into force, those accused of stalking, cyber-bullying or domestic violence would be forced to stay 500 metres away from their victims’ homes and other places they usually go.

Victims of domestic violence, stalking, and other crimes which disproportionately affect women would be constantly informed on the location of their aggressors, and notified when they are released from prison.

On top of that, a preventative measure would allow authorities to take away any weapon in possession of a person who’s been already reported for any of the previous crimes. The legislative packet could be modified as it goes through the two chambers, but it’s expected to be passed through Parliament.

“Some elements [of the new package] are probably going in the right direction, for example the efforts to provide victims with greater protection,” Alessandra Viviani, associate professor of international law at the University of Siena, told Euronews. “But in my opinion, to combat the phenomenon of violence against women, this isn’t enough,” she added.

“We cannot continue to work only and exclusively in the field of criminal law, as we’ve done in the past few years. And it’s clear from the fact that episodes of violence against women aren’t decreasing, but are becoming ever more obscene in their violence and cruelness.”

For Viviani, what Italy needs to address is the way men who kill women are seen by the media and the public. “Femicides are seen as the actions of crazy men, men who don’t accept being left behind,” she said.

“As long as we keep on interpreting femicides as the action of a few men turned evil, we’re never going to see a change in society. Because violence against women comes from a profound inequality that’s deeply rooted in our culture.”

What the country needs, according to Viviani, it’s to educate people, starting from schools, to feel empathy and respect towards women.

Biaggioni, who thinks that “we should not act on the wave of emotion for one particular victim”, agrees. The real problem in Italy, she said, is a lack of training, “the ability to recognise that violence against women is a serious problem.”

“We need prevention, we need education,” she said. “We need anti-violence centres to be able to go to schools and talk to the kids about the topic. Most of the activities on violence in schools are done by law enforcement agencies through programs against bullying, online violence, and so on — that’s not enough,” she continued. “But they don’t let associations like ours into schools because they’re afraid of the so-called gender ideology.”

“We need to make people understand that there’s a way out of this violence,” Pellizzone said. “We need to increase funding to the anti-violence centres, and we need to provide the tools for women to ask for help without feeling guilt and knowing that their physical integrity is their constitutional right.”

Source link

#murder #Italy #moves #boost #laws #protecting #women

NATO peacekeepers injured in clashes with ethnic Serb protesters in Kosovo

Post By World Albania, Aleksandar Vučić, Europe, European Union, Giorgia-Meloni, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, nato, protest, Serbia

Over 30 peacekeepers deployed in a NATO-led mission in Kosovo were injured Monday in clashes with Serb protesters who demanded the removal of recently elected ethnic Albanian mayors, as tensions flare in the Balkan nation.

The KFOR mission said it had faced “unprovoked attacks” while countering a hostile crowd, after demonstrators clashed with police and tried to force their way into a government building in the northern town of Zvecan.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said 52 Serbs were hurt, three seriously, while one was “wounded with two gunshots by (ethnic) Albanian special forces”.

Hungary‘s defence minister said on Facebook that “more than 20 Hungarian soldiers” were among the wounded, with seven in a serious but stable condition.

Italy‘s foreign minister said three of its soldiers were seriously wounded, and the country’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni joined NATO in calling for “all parties to take a step back to lower tensions”.

Kosovo‘s Serbs had boycotted last month’s elections in northern towns, which allowed ethnic Albanians to take control of local councils despite a minuscule turnout of under 3.5 percent of voters.

Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government officially installed the mayors last week, defying calls to ease the tensions by the European Union and the United States, which have both championed the territory’s 2008 independence from Serbia.

Many Serbs are demanding the withdrawal of Kosovo police forces — whose presence in northern Kosovo has long sparked resistance — as well as the ethnic Albanian mayors they do not consider their true representatives.

Fractures and burns

Early Monday, groups of Serbs clashed with Kosovo police in front of the municipal building in Serb-majority Zvecan and tried to enter, after which law enforcers responded by firing tear gas, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.kf

NATO-led peacekeepers in the KFOR mission at first tried to separate protesters from the police, but later started to disperse the crowd using shields and batons, an AFP journalist saw.

Several protesters responded by hurling rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers, but were quickly repelled a few hundred meters away from the Zvecan municipal building.

“While countering the most active fringes of the crowd, several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices,” KFOR said in a statement.

Eleven Italian soldiers were injured with “three in a serious condition”, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.

“We will not tolerate further attacks against KFOR,” said Meloni. “It is essential to avoid further unilateral actions by the Kosovo authorities and for all parties to take a step back to lower tensions”.

NATO strongly condemned the “unprovoked” attacks against KFOR troops, adding that such actions were “totally unacceptable”.

“Violence must stop immediately. We call on all sides to refrain from actions that further inflame tensions, and to engage in dialogue,” NATO said in a statement.

The Commander of the KFOR Mission, Division General Angelo Michele Ristuccia, slammed the “unacceptable” attacks and underlined that KFOR will “continue to fulfil its mandate impartially”.

Kosovo police said “organised” demonstrators rallied in northern Kosovo towns, home to many ethnic Serbs who reject Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.

“The protesters, using violence and throwing tear gas, tried to cross the security cordons and make a forced entry into the municipality facility” in Zvecan, Kosovo police said in a statement.

“Police were forced to use legal means, such as (pepper) spray, to stop the protesters and bring the situation under control.”

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and Belgrade and its key allies Russia and China have refused to recognise it, effectively preventing Kosovo from having a seat at the United Nations.

Serbs in Kosovo remained largely loyal to Belgrade, especially in the north, where they make up a majority and reject every move by Pristina to consolidate its control over the region.

International concern

KFOR said it had bolstered its presence in northern Kosovo following the latest developments and urged Belgrade and Pristina to engage in an EU-led dialogue to reduce tensions.

“We call on all sides to refrain from actions that could inflame tensions or cause escalation,” KFOR said in a statement.

Police had already used tear gas Friday to disperse Serbs in northern Kosovo who protested the installation of the mayors.

Belgrade responded by placing its army on high alert and ordered forces towards the Serbian border with Kosovo.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking on a visit to Kenya, said that “Serbs are fighting for their rights in northern Kosovo”.

“A big explosion is looming in the heart of Europe, where NATO in 1999 carried out an aggression against Yugoslavia,” Lavrov said, referring to the 1999 NATO intervention against Belgrade that effectively ended the war between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

The US ambassador and European Union envoy have summoned the ethnic Albanian mayors to a meeting in Pristina in a bid to ease tensions.

Two media teams from Pristina reported that protesters had slashed their tyres and spray-painted their vehicles, while a local journalists’ association called on law enforcers to provide a safe working environment for the media.

After his first-round victory at the French Open on Monday, Serbian tennis superstar Novak Djokovic penned the message “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence” on a television camera.

“Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of the most important things for our country,” Djokovic told reporters.

“I am against war, violence and conflict of any kind and I have always publicly shown that. Of course I have sympathy for all people but what is happening with Kosovo is a precedent in international law.”

(AFP)

Source link

#NATO #peacekeepers #injured #clashes #ethnic #Serb #protesters #Kosovo

Why Tunisia’s political and economical crisis is Europe’s problem too

Post By World Authoritarianism, European Union, Italy, Kais Saied, Tunisia

Following President Kais Saied’s political crackdown on dissent in Tunisia, Europe has been cautious about condemning his authoritarian descent, fearful of risking instability in a country which plays a key role in stopping illegal migration.

More than 2,000 kilometres away from the political heart of the European Union in Brussels, Tunisia’s fragile democracy is being eroded and the country’s stability is starting to shake.

The democracy which the country has taken more than a decade to build after the Arab Spring is being dismantled by Tunisia’s current president Kais Saied, who’s shrunk the power of parliament and the judiciary since taking office in 2019, and has recently crackdown on the opposition.

Meanwhile, Tunisia’s economy is on the verge of collapse as the country scrambles to find enough foreign funding to sustain its massive external debt.

But what happens in Tunisia doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and the physical distance between Europe and Tunisia is unlikely to shield the continent from the consequences of the North African country’s authoritarian descent and the unravelling of its democracy. Political and economic turmoil in the North African country is likely to have a significant impact on Europe – and especially Italy.

That is not only because parts of Italy, like the island of Sardinia, are actually closer to the Tunisian coast than they are to the country’s mainland. But also because Italy has recently become Tunisia’s number one trading partner, and the country increasingly relies on Tunisian authorities to discourage the growing migratory pressure on the Italian coasts.

What is happening in Tunisia?

On 10 April, in the Tunisian town of Haffouz, history almost repeated itself when 35-year-old footballer Nizar Issaoui set himself on fire to protest against what he called “the police state.”

Issaoui, a former player for US Monastir and a father of four, was accused of terrorism after complaining about the rising price of bananas – 10 dinars, the equivalent of €3.05 – with a fruit seller.

His desperate gesture was almost identical to that of fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation on 17 December 2010 started off a series of uprisings throughout the Arab world which became known as the “Arab Spring.”

Tunisia was the country where the Arab Spring started, and the only success story of the uprising. While in other countries the protests didn’t achieve much real change, Tunisia emerged from the revolutionary times with an apparently stable multi-party democracy led by a new government which took the place of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Ben Ali had been Tunisia’s president since 1987, but resigned in 2011 and fled to Saudi Arabia after weeks of protests.

In the years that followed, Tunisia introduced a constitution that enshrined civil rights and made sure that no other strongman could take the lead of the country. It was a huge success for Tunisians – but the initial excitement soon turned into disillusionment as a series of governments failed to bring to life the dream of economic growth and improved living conditions that came with the uprisings.

Tunisia is now much poorer than it was in 2010, partly because of the devastating impact the pandemic had on its economy and rising inflation. The disappointment with the new democratic system led to the landslide victory of Kais Saied in 2019, which turned the previously unknown constitutional law expert into Tunisia’s sixth president in the last 12 years.

During his campaign, Saied said that the democratic system wasn’t working, claiming that political parties in parliament had too much power.

When during the pandemic Saied was given emergency powers to try and rescue the country’s severely hit economy and struggling health services, he used these powers to fire the prime minister, close the National Assembly and suspend the constitution – reversing a decade of democratic reforms.

Those who criticised and opposed him, from politicians to journalists, were detained or jailed. In July last year, Saied won a referendum which allowed him to introduce a new constitution, increasing his power at the detriment of the parliament and the judiciary.

On April 17, the arrest of the leader of the opposition Ennahda party Rached Ghannouchi sparked an outcry from critics of Saied accusing his government of taking an increasingly authoritarian turn.

A similarly outraged reaction has been triggered by Saied’s hateful comments on migrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa. Saied said they’re part of a “conspiracy” aimed at changing the demographic composition of Tunisia and has blamed them for the problems of the country.

But Tunisia’s political turmoil isn’t the only crisis the country is facing.

“Parallel to that there’s an economic crisis linked to Tunisia’s significant external debt, which is reliant on foreign funding to continue to effectively meet these external liabilities,” Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa Project Director at the think tank the International Crisis Group, told Euronews.

Tunisia right now doesn’t have enough money to pay its significant debt, and it needs to find a source of financing to avoid a default. “The big risk right now is that at some point Tunisia might have to default on its debt with a series of consequences – politically, socially and economically – that we can’t fully anticipate,” Fabiani said.

The EU is the biggest foreign investor in Tunisia, accounting for 85% of the foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the country.

Why does this matter for Europe – and Italy?

“The Europeans feel that they are on the front line of instability in North Africa and in the Mediterranean,” Fabiani said. “And they feel that what happens in Tunisia has direct consequences for them.”

From a migration perspective, particularly in Italy, “there is a strong fear that not only that economic or political instability in Tunisia may trigger a new wave of migration, including irregular departures from Tunisia to Europe,” Fabiani said.

“And we have already seen over the past months an increase in the number of departures and regular departures from Tunisia because of the economic crisis.”

Some 18,893 migrants have reached the Italian coasts from the North African country since the beginning of the year and as of 18 April, 2,764 of whom held a Tunisian passport.

Saied’s attacks against sub-Saharan Africans in the country are likely to have caused a surge in the number of people willing to leave Tunisia, and Tunisian nationals are just as eager to leave. According to a recent survey by the Observatoire National de la Migration, 65% of Tunisians say they’re willing to leave the country at whatever cost. Among those under 30, the percentage goes up to 90%.

The number of arrivals from Tunisia has significantly increased compared to the same timeframe last year, when less than 2,000 migrants reached Italy’s coasts.

“Italy has never criticised Kais Saied, because for Italy the most important thing is that Saied can keep things under control, in terms of migration, in his country. This is the most important thing, even if it means that Italy has to interact with and foster a long-term friendship with a leader as problematic as Saied,” Alissa Pavia, associate director for the North Africa Program within the Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, told Euronews.

“It’s understandable that Italy and the European governments might be concerned that instability could trigger migration, but they’re also concerned that instability in Tunisia could make the situation worse. For example, in some of the neighbouring countries, like Libya, where there is already a crisis that has been going on for many years. So, you know, there are concerns about regional stability and migration that are very high, I would say, in the list of priorities of the Europeans.”

There are also purely economic reasons why the unfolding political situation in Tunisia is important for Europe, and especially Italy – the same reasons why Giorgia Meloni’s government is more interested in maintaining stability in the North African country than protecting its democracy.

Last year, Italy became Tunisia’s number one trading partner, overtaking France – though France remains the North African country’s leading export market. Germany follows the two Mediterranean countries in third place.

The Algerian gas supplies – which Italy started relying on in 2022 to replace Russian imports – go across Tunisia before reaching Italy, through the Enrico Mattei pipeline, also known as the Trans-Med pipeline.

Is stability in the region worth turning a blind eye to Saied’s authoritarian turn?

The European Parliament has already made two statements about Tunisian in 2023: one condemning President Saied and the way he has used the worsening socio-economic situation to reverse the country’s historic democratic transition; and the other urging Tunisian authorities to immediately release Noureddine Boutar, director of Tunisia’s largest independent radio station, who was arrested by counter-terrorist units on politically motivated grounds and unfounded allegations.

In February, Wolfgang Büchner, a German government spokesperson, said that Berlin was looking at the arrests of the Tunisian opposition, journalists, and activists with “great concern.”

In April, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “Tunisia’s democracy must not be lost” after Rached Ghannouchi, head of the opposition, was arrested.

“Yet, we have yet to see a strong and cohesive European condemnation of President Saied’s ongoing power grab,” said the Atlantic Council’s Alissa Pavia.

“We have yet to see any concrete actions taken by either the EU or other EU Countries. Europe must decide whether it intends to support Tunisia’s democracy, or whether it will allow it to descend back into authoritarianism.”

Europe, and especially Italy, have an interest in maintaining stability in the country – which in this case means not exerting pressure on Saied to rein in its political crackdown on dissent. But Saied’s political crackdown risks having the same effect which Europe and Italy wish to avoid.

“We can see a positive correlation between dictators taking power and an increase of persecution against political opposition and other people, for example, people of minorities and so on, increasingly migrating and trying to reach Europe and Italy,” Pavia said.

“Generally it’s better to have open communication with democratic rulers rather than be at the behest of tyrants and dictators who we can’t trust.”

Source link

#Tunisias #political #economical #crisis #Europes #problem

Why young adults in Italy and Ireland have to live with their parents

Post By World Cost Of Living, Housing, Inflation, Ireland, Italy

In the face of rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, Euronews investigates the reasons why young people are struggling to get on the property ladder or afford to pay rent.

Sophie is just one of 350,000 young adults in Ireland between the ages of 20-35 still living in her family home. Like many millennials in Ireland, the 28-year-old marketing executive from Galway is locked out of the housing market.

This problem is not unique to Ireland, according to Eurostat, approximately 67% of people (between 16-29) in Europe live at home with their parents or relatives, but for some, this is not a choice.

The Galway native told Euronews that rising inflation coupled with the cost-of-living crisis is largely to blame: “It’s so frustrating, I have a master’s degree, a good salary and like so many of my friends I’m saving to buy a house.

“But I had to move back in with mum and dad because I was struggling to save money, let alone pay rent, even now it is going to take me forever to save a deposit,” she said.

Affordability is a major issue, as Ciarán Lynch, a former member of the Irish Parliament explained: “House prices have never been so expensive and interest rates are increasingly rising for people coming into the housing market.

“They are almost as close to the figures from two years ago when interest rates were particularly set by the European Central Bank”.

The Mortgage Crux

Considering that house prices on average in Ireland are 94% above those of the EU, Sophie’s dilemma is not surprising.

In order to be eligible for a mortgage in Ireland, first-time buyers are limited to a loan of four times their gross annual income, a prospective mortgage is also capped at 90% of a property’s value.

However, house prices across the country have risen 537% since 1988 and are not in line with today’s earnings.

According to recruitment solutions giant Morgan McKinley, professionals in Ireland take home an average salary of €45,000. However, the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) recently revealed that the average Irish house price is now a record-breaking €359,000.

So, for single-income, first-time buyers with a salary of €45,000, the maximum amount they can borrow is €180,000, which is slightly more than half of the average house price.

Ireland vs Italy

House prices and rents vary from one EU Member State to the next, in fact, in some EU countries, house prices have dropped in recent years. Italy, for example, experienced a boom until the financial crash in 2008 and then the cost of property steadily dropped. According to Eurostat, prices were cheaper in 2022 compared to 2010.

While rents have increased in Italy, the differences are marginal compared to Estonia, Lithuania, or Ireland where the average monthly rent stood at €1,733 in December 2022, that’s 126% higher than in 2011.

If the Italian house prices are more attractive to potential buyers, does this translate to higher levels of property ownership among young adults? On the contrary, a higher percentage of young adults live at home with their parents in Italy than in Ireland.

So, what are the drivers behind this trend in both countries?

Ireland’s lack of supply

While median gross salaries in Ireland are considerably higher than in Italy, available homes are also few and far between on the Emerald Isle.

“In 2010, we had 24,000 rental properties advertised on Daft (Ireland’s top property site) on any one day of that year, compare this to recent figures when we had just 700 properties available right across the country,” said Mark Rose, the managing director of Rose Properties.

“So now we have approximately 3% of what was available in 2010, we need thousands of rental properties to be loaded onto the market today, tomorrow or as soon as possible, they are urgently, urgently needed,” Rose added.

Limited properties are increasing demand and are placing a serious strain on rents and potential buyers, as the managing director of Dennehy Auctioneers in Cork told Euronews: “The rental market in Ireland is totally and utterly dysfunctional. We put a house up to rent two weeks ago at 12:55 pm and by 13:20 pm we had 90 emails (enquiries)”.

“We need thousands of apartments in cities to keep up with demand, however, Ireland is a victim of its own success, a lot of people want to come and live and work in this country and are attracted by the lifestyle, but our population is also growing and we can’t keep up,” Dennehy said.

The Central Statistics Office estimated that the population in Ireland increased by 88,800 between April 2021 and April 2022, the largest 12-month population increase since 2008. This is largely due to a 445% surge in migration and according to Dennehy, foreign direct investment is part of this trend: “Ninety per cent of the inquiries I am currently receiving for a new housing development in Carrigaline (a commuter town in Cork) are from non-nationals, and ninety per cent of those again are non-EU”.

“The professionals coming here have good jobs, they are well paid and they love this country”.

But former deputy Lynch who chaired the Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform in October 2012, said non-nationals with money to burn are also running into problems: “Foreign direct investment is a very, very significant part of the Irish economic model. And job creation has become a problem because it’s not that the jobs aren’t there, but the houses aren’t actually there for the employees when they get those jobs.”

The Italian job

“Property might be cheaper in Italy but the problem lies with the country’s stagnant labour market,” said Mimmo Parisi, a sociology professor from the University of Mississippi.

The senior advisor for European and data science development told Euronews: “Everyone is looking for that dream job in Italy and professionals don’t move around much, once they find a dream position they stay, often for life. As a consequence, there are fewer job openings and it’s difficult for young adults to enter the job market”.

High youth unemployment in Italy is a major factor. According to Italy’s national statistics institute, ISTAT, the unemployment rate (for youths aged 15-24) was 22.9% in January 2023, nearly eight points higher than the EU average of 15.1%, as a consequence young Italians are less financially independent.

“Add dubious work contracts, slow wage growth and low salaries to the mix and it is easy to see why young Italians are stuck at home despite falling house prices. It is also difficult for university graduates to secure relevant short-term work experience when the labour market works in favour of an ageing workforce,” explained Parisi.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Italy is the only European country where wages fell between 1990 and 2020, all the other Member States experienced a rise with Lithuania leading the charge with a 276.3% increase.

“Many students stay in university that bit longer when hunting for that dream job, which as we’ve learned is difficult to come by. This forces young adults to be more reliant on their parents until that happens,” Parisi said.

To add to the plight of youths, an Italian bank will not approve a mortgage without a permanent work contract otherwise known as ‘il contratto a tempo indeterminato’, which creates additional obstacles.

Source link

#young #adults #Italy #Ireland #live #parents

Why can’t youths in Italy and Ireland afford to move out of home?

Post By World Cost Of Living, Housing, Ireland, Italy

In the second part of our three-part series, Euronews investigates how tourism is proving to be both a blessing and a curse for young people hoping to buy or rent property in Italy and Ireland.

Competing with tourists

Italy’s charming lakes, world-famous gastronomy, climate and heritage attract millions of tourists every year. Some 56 million tourists reportedly visited the Bel Paese in 2022; a figure close to pre-pandemic levels.

While tourism is one of the main drivers behind Europe’s third-largest economy, locals in some of Italy’s most popular cities like Milan, Rome, Venice and Naples are struggling to compete with the year-round flow of tourists for a limited supply of housing.

Airbnb, the online accommodation service that allows property owners to rent their homes or rooms to travellers, was introduced to the country in 2008. According to resident Fabio Scrivanti who works at the Venice Art Factory, it created a living nightmare for locals needing affordable accommodation solutions.

“Venetian landlords discovered that it was more profitable to list their property on Airbnb than rent to everyday people,” he told Euronews.

“It’s controversial because locals can’t afford to pay upwards of say €80 for a room per night — the price someone might pay for an overnight stay in a hotel — if they had to reckon with these prices, that would amount to €2,400 per month, that’s crazy, I certainly couldn’t afford that,” he said.

“I am 29, I have a master’s degree and work in the field I studied at university, I have lots of experience but even still, salaries are not high in Italy. People my age can’t afford rent, never mind a house of their own, lots of my friends are still living at home with their parents, it’s just easier.

“I got lucky with my shared apartment because my landlord gave me my room at a good price but this is rare, I know this isn’t the reality for many people” he explained.

Aside from Airbnb, astronomical rents in some of Italy’s major hubs are also making it more difficult for city residents to afford down payments on mortgages. According to Europe’s largest online rental platform, Housing Everywhere, Milan is one of the most expensive cities in Europe.

Lucia Pizzimenti (35) an environmental engineer, living and working in Milan, told Euronews: “I am living with my grandmother who has a spare room in her apartment because I don’t want to pay upwards of €800 for a small room here”.

Lucia has been searching for a property of her own for the last seven years but recently she had to broaden her search to commuter towns or nearby cities in order to find a flat within her budget.

As aspiring renters and homeowners in Italy continue to battle the influx of tourists post-pandemic and soaring accommodation costs, the lack of short-term accommodation solutions in Ireland is discouraging tourists from visiting the Emerald Isle.

The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) says the cost inflation on holiday accommodation is having a negative impact on the tourism sector and that one-third of tourism beds outside of the capital are under government housing contracts, serving as international protection accommodation for refugees and asylum seekers. In County Donegal alone more than 50 per cent of tourism beds are contracted by the Government.

The number of international visitors to Ireland during the first quarter of 2023 was 16 per cent below January-March 2019. As Irish tourism providers struggle to match Ireland’s pre-COVID tourism levels, many companies within the tourism sector fear ongoing price hikes will put Ireland’s long-term reputation at risk.

This affects activity and tour providers across the country who rely heavily on hotels, B&Bs, hostels and Airbnb to house visitors during their stays.

Nowhere to go

Europe’s migration crisis or the strain it places on the lack of available accommodation is now having an effect on refugees and locals alike.

According to the Irish Refugee Council, rapid increases in asylum seekers, specifically Ukrainian refugees, have highlighted the shortcomings of Ireland’s housing policy. So far, some 73,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Ireland since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and they all need a place to live.

The Irish Red Cross reported that the lack of readily available emergency accommodation solutions in Ireland for Ukrainian refugees had reached a crisis point in July 2022 despite the public’s best efforts. In March 2022, Irish Red Cross Secretary General Liam O’Dwyer confirmed that approximately 23,000 locations had been offered up by the public to be vetted to house Ukrainians.

While Irish residents were hailed for their generosity, this figure wasn’t enough. As a consequence, some Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ireland had little choice but to sleep on the floor of Dublin Airport, in hotel lobbies and temporary campsites.

The Irish government has promised to find solutions to the housing shortage and support local communities, newcomers and asylum seekers alike but the ITIC says that tourism and the revenue it generates also need to be factored into the equation.

The decade of lost development

According to Mark Rose, the Managing Director of Rose Properties, Ireland’s economic growth and recovery post the 2008 crash was largely thanks to foreign direct investment: “We have recovered well, there is lots of money and lots of jobs in Ireland but there no housing to support everyone that we are attracting in. So, even if we wanted to attract in builders to help relieve the crisis, as many countries do, there would be nowhere for them to live,” he said.

“We had little to no building in this country for nine or ten years because there was no money to build, architects, bricklayers, electricians, builders, they all moved overseas to Australia etc in search of work, and these professionals never returned”.

While Ireland is still one of the least densely-populated countries in Europe, the laws governing planning permission create a lot of red tape for potential builders, as Roy Dennehy, the Head of Dennehy Auctioneers explained: “We’re living in the lag period because in 2006 we had a population of maybe four and a half million, but we were building 90,000 units.

“That’s between apartments and houses per annum. The population is higher now and we are only building a fraction of what we were” he added.

The CSO found that some 30,000 residential units were built in Ireland last year, a third of the dwellings built across the Irish State in 2006.

Stay tuned for the final article in this three-part series in the coming week.

Source link

#youths #Italy #Ireland #afford #move #home

Cart