Matteo Salvini./ Photo: @matteosalvinimi
The Diplomat. 06/07/2018
The plenary of the Congress has expressed its “deep condemnation and rejection” of the decision made by the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, to take a census of gypsy people that facilitates the expulsion from the country of those who are in an illegal situation.
In an institutional statement approved by consent (therefore, without the opposition of any group) on June 28 and published yesterday by the Official Gazette of the Lower Chamber, the Congress remembers the “close relationship between Spain and Italy” and the need of “defending the fundamental freedoms and rights of all the human beings without discrimination based on reasons of race, gender, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation”.
Therefore, the Lower Chamber also expresses its rejection of the words pronounced by the Italian minister affirming “that those who are Italian will unfortunately have to stay”.
“Actions like these are not based on the legal framework of the European Union and threaten the most basic principles of the liberal democracy”, the Congress warns. “This type of declarations and attitudes take us back to the darkest periods of the recent history of the European continent”, it adds.
[hr style=»single»]
Salvini’s declarations and attitudes “take us back to the darkest periods of Europe’s history”
[hr style=»single»]
“Therefore, the Congress cannot remain impassive and silent facing this type of declarations and behaviors that attack the same pillars of our modern society and provoke hatred, including other European citizens”, the institutional declaration continues.
“From the Congress, we urge the Italian Government to give up this type of declarations in the future and, of course, not to put them into practice”, it points out.
Furthermore, the Congress “exhorts the national Parliaments of the member States of the European Union, including the Parliament and the Senate of the Italian Republic, and the European Parliament to also express their condemnation for this type of declarations of public representatives in the European Union”, it concludes.
