Tag: Northern League

Italian parliamentarians form ‘Friends of Putin’

A group of “Friends of Putin” is being formed in the Italian parliament.
It was an initiative of Paolo Grimoldi, an opposition member and one of leaders of the Northern League party, the press service of the house of deputies said.

The politician has already begun collecting signatures in the parliament palace and expects hundreds of supporters among deputies and senators to give their signatures.

Putin is respected by members of various political forces, despite the chatter of parties about sanctions against Russia, which the Northern League views as open madness, Italian news agency ANSA cited the legislator as saying.

In recent years, Putin’s political weight was even more clearly seen, especially if to compare with the catastrophe of Obama’s administration and others, the Italian legislator said.

The politician called for continuing traditional cooperation between Russia and Italy.

The initiative is aimed at supporting the dialogue with the trade and economic partner. It is an important gesture against the suicide blockade that will cause damage to Italian enterprises. Russia and Italy should continue dialogue and cooperation in economy and in fight against the ISIL (Islamic State), the politician said.

A few days ago, at a press conference in TASS in Moscow, Grimoldi said about the importance of maintaining Italian-Russian ties. He arrived in Russia together with the Northern League’s delegation headed by the party’s secretary Matteo Salvini.

Local observers, commenting on Grimoldi’s initiative, said it was the first reaction to President Putin’s participation in the Asia-Europe summit in Milan.

Source: ItarTASS

Geert Wilders riding high

geertDutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders is riding high ahead of this month’s European Parliament elections, hoping to destroy from within what he calls the ‘monster of Brussels’.

The platinum-haired Wilders in November announced “the start of the liberation of Europe” from the European Union after forming a partnership with French right-wing party National Front (FN).

Like the FN’s leader Marine Le Pen, Wilders wants to take his country out of the EU and to abandon the euro.

The latest Ipsos opinion poll on May 1 ranked Wilders’ PVV third in the Netherlands, just below the ruling coalition partner People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the pro-Europe D66.

Despite thousands filing police complaints of racism against Wilders, his anti-EU and anti-immigration call still appeals to many disillusioned with crisis-driven budget cuts blamed on Brussels.

The virulently pro-Israel Wilders has been giving extensive interviews, including to pro-Kremlin media, blaming the Ukraine crisis on the European Union.

The Dutch Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) on Wednesday said he was “betraying his principles” by cooperating with Le Pen.

Despite Wilders’ fawning approaches to Nigel Farage, his UK Independence Party (UKIP) and Scandinavian eurosceptic parties have said they would not work with Wilders because of his association with Le Pen.

In order to form a far-right anti-European bloc, Wilders and Le Pen would have to find like-minded politicians in at least a quarter of the EU’s 28 member states and see 25 members elected to the now trimmed-down 751-seat European Parliament.

So far Wilders reportedly wants Italy’s Northern League, Austria’s FPO, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Slovakia’s SNS and the Swedish Democrats on board.

If they become an official European political group, they would benefit from subsidies, offices, a communication budget, seats on committees and speaking time in parliament proportional to their number.

The Netherlands this time only has 27 seats in the European Parliament and with the PVV expected to gain around five seats, it will remain junior to the mightier National Front.

“Indirectly though he’ll have a far greater impact,” said political analyst Andre Krouwel, because of his ability to create doubt and division within bigger parties.

“He’s using it on national level. It is likely to happen on European level as well,” Krouwel said.

Source: AFP

Venetian nationalists accused of ‘terror’

Luca Zaia
Luca Zaia

Italian police on Wednesday arrested 24 people involved in a campaign to demand independence for Venice and its surrounding region and seized a tractor that they said the activists had tried to convert into a sort of tank.

The surprise arrests came just two weeks after activists held an online vote calling for the Veneto region, which encompasses the lagoon city, to break away from the rest of Italy and declare itself the “Repubblica Veneta”.

The authorities accused the 24 separatists of being involved in “terrorism”, “fabrication of weapons of war” and “subversion of the democratic order”.

The activists were part of a “secessionist group that was planning various initiatives, some of them violent, aimed at pushing for the independence of Veneto and other parts of the national territory of the Italian State,” the paramilitary Carabinieri said.

The activists were allegedly planning to use the “tank”, which was armed with a makeshift cannon, to stage a protest in Venice’s St Mark’s Square, 17 years after a similar stunt in which Veneto separatists drove a home-made armoured car into the famous square.

Police claim the makeshift tank was in good working order and was capable of firing projectiles from its barrel.

Those arrested included Franco Rocchetta, a former MP and the founder of the Liga Veneta, or Veneto League, one of several separatist movements calling for independence for the affluent north-eastern region.

In last month’s unofficial referendum, organisers claimed that 56 per cent of registered voters in the region cast a vote online and that an overwhelming majority supported secession from Italy.

They said that out of a total 2.36 million votes cast, 2.1 million voted for independence.

The drive for independence is supported by Veneto’s most powerful politician, Luca Zaia, who is president of the region and a member of the separatist Northern League.

Mr Zaia leads a regional assembly which is debating holding an official referendum on the issue, just as Scotland secured the right to hold September’s vote on seceding from the UK. He says there are powerful economic and cultural reasons for Veneto to strive for independence.

Venetians and the people of surrounding cities such as Padova and Vicenza deeply resent the fact that each year Rome takes 20 billion euros of their tax revenue.

They feel that the money is squandered on corrupt and dysfunctional parts of Italy, particularly in the crime-ridden south.

Source: The Telegraph

Councillor calls for black Italian minister ‘to be raped’

Councillor Dolores Valandro

A councillor belonging to Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party called Thursday for the country’s first black minister to be raped, sparking an outcry and her expulsion from the party.

“Won’t someone rape her, just to make her understand what victims of this terrible crime feel? For shame!” Dolores Valandro, a councillor in Padua in Northern Italy, wrote on Facebook alongside a photograph of African-Italian Immigration Minister Cecile Kyenge.

Valandro was apparently reacting to an article on a website called “all immigrant crimes” which detailed an alleged attempt by a Somali in Genoa to rape two Romanian girls, Italian media reports said.

Kyenge said “everyone should feel offended” by the comments, and said she had long battled against violent language and behaviour.

Her reaction was supported by Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who said: “Cecile Kyenge is right, each one of us should feel offended, I feel offended.”

“The words do not deserve any comment, just disdain. Cecile deserves solidarity from me, the government and the country,” he said.

Valandro later apologised, saying: “It was a something I said in a moment of anger. When I’m angry I vent that way.”

Kyenge, an eye doctor and Italian citizen originally from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has been subjected to a barrage of racist attacks since being appointed minister in February.

She has drawn heated criticism from the League over plans to push for legislation that would allow children born in Italy to immigrant parents to get automatic citizenship instead of waiting until 18 to apply. – AFP