Much of the Italian centre left, but
no party leaders, made a pilgrimage Saturday to Ventotene, the
island south of Rome where anti-fascist prisoners and political
thinkers Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni in
1941 wrote a manifesto for a federalist Europe that is widely
considered a foundational text for the European Union, amid a
major row after rightwing Premier Giorgia Meloni told parliament
this week that the manifesto "is certainly not my Europe",
spurring outrage in the opposition.
The centre-left delegation left a bouquet of flowers on
Spinelli's grave on the former Resistance prison island off
Latina in the EU colours of blue and yellow.
The initiative was promoted by the largest opposition group, the
Democratic Party (PD), who were joined by the centrist Italia
Viva (IV), the Green-Left Alli.ance (AVS) and More Europe.
Two other opposition parties, the centrist Azione (Action) and
the leftist populist 5-Star Movement (M5S), did not take part.
"I don't think those who didn't come are against, maybe they had
other things to do. I'm happy to
be there though", said the head of the PD delegation in the
European Parliament Nicola Zingaretti, a former PD leader, who
led the event.
"It shouldn't be seen as a controversy. The important thing is
that we all work to try to build a unitary proposal at the end",
he added.
M5S leader and former two-time premier Giuseppe Conte replied:
"It's not enough to appeal to Ventotene, we need to fight
concretely".
The Ventotene Manifesto, written as it was by Resistance heroes
who helped lead the fight against Mussolini, is regarded as a
sacred text on the left and Meloni's attack on it incense the
opposition forcing a temporary halt to parliamentary activity.
Meloni picked out parts of the manifesto which advocated for a
federalist dictatorship of the proletariat with the temporary
suspension of democracy and the abolition of private property.
After she was accused of defending fascism, she slammed the left
as "illiberal and nostalgic".
Ventone is today a holiday island like the smaller former prison
island of Santo Stefano. With Ponza, Palmarola, Gavi and
Zannone, it makes up the Pontine Islands, so called after the
Pontine Marshes which Mussolini drained to found Latina, the
City of the Duce, and other new towns in the 1930s.
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