Tuesday

28th Mar 2023

Italy PM chooses women MEP candidates to combat 'grey' list

  • Success in the 25 May elections is crucial for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (Photo: Carlo Nidasio)

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has selected five women to front the campaign of his Democratic Party (PD) for May's European Parliament elections, with an 11th-hour reshuffling of candidates' lists that caused a few frictions among his underlings.

Renzi picked four national PD lawmakers – Alessia Mosca, Alessandra Moretti, Simona Bonafè and Pina Picierno – as well as justice ministry official Caterina Chinnici, whose father Rocco, a judge, was slain by the Sicilian mafia in 1983, to head the PD's lists in Italy's north-west, north-east, centre, south and islands constituencies.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

He made the change on Tuesday (8 April) night, on the eve of an official announcement. Italian media suggested he intervened because the draft list of candidates that had been submitted to him was too "grey".

As a result, two people who were bumped off the top positions – Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini and Bari Mayor Michele Emiliano – withdrew from the race. It is still unclear who will take their place. The PD has until April 15 to make a decision.

Nicolini – who dealt with the aftermath of the 3 October shipwreck off the shores of Lampedusa, in which 366 migrants died, and campaigns for immigration reform in Italy and the European Union – said that after being denied the number one spot she had been promised, her candidacy had been "deprived of any meaning".

List frontrunners are by no means guaranteed election, as all candidates have to compete for preference votes. But the top position on ballot papers gives them much-needed visibility, multiplying their chances of success.

The PD lists include 16 out of 23 outgoing MEPs who are seeking re-election, including European Parliament Vice President Gianni Pittella, who is gunning for a promotion to the top seat in the EU assembly, which has not been occupied by an Italian since 1979.

Other notable candidates are Renato Soru, a former President of Sardinia and founder of internet provider Tiscali, and Congo-born Cecile Kyenge, who was subjected to a torrent of racist abuse while serving as Italy's first-ever black cabinet member under Renzi's predecessor Enrico Letta.

Success in the 25 May elections is crucial for Renzi. He is keen to consolidate support for his reform-oriented government and win a personal endorsement from voters after breaking a promise to seek high office only after a general election win. Instead, he ousted party colleague Letta in February, following a behind-the-scenes coup.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) of comedian Beppe Grillo, which is courting recession-weary voters with promises to "send home" all professional politicians, hold a referendum on eurozone membership and withdraw from austerity pacts such as the Fiscal Compact, is the biggest threat to the PD.

In a deepening rivalry, Renzi and Grillo are trading verbal punches almost daily.

Writing on his blog, the M5S leader dismissed the Renzi's female frontrunners as a "marketing" ploy" in the best Berlusconian tradition", evoking former premier Silvio Berlusconi's promotion of former models, singers and TV showgirls through the ranks of his People of Freedom and Forza Italia parties.

Renzi shot back in an interview with RAI state television. "Grillo wakes up every morning and thinks: 'How can I attack the PD today?'; I wake up every morning and I think: 'How I can change Italy today?'," he said.

A poll released Friday by the Ixe institute had the PD leading the race for the EU vote with 32.2 percent, followed by the M5S on 25.2 percent. Forza Italia – whose leader Berlusconi is waiting for judges to confirm that he can serve a tax fraud conviction performing community service – was trailing on 19.1 percent.

Three other parties made it across the 4-per-cent threshold: the New Centre Right, a ruling coalition partner of the PD, on 5.3 percent; the far-right Northern League on 5.2 percent; and the far-left Tsipras List on 4.2 percent.

Italy's Grillo wants disloyal MEPs to pay hefty fine

Italy's anti-establishment politician Beppe Grillo has asked candidates for next month's European Parliament elections to commit to paying a fine of €250,000 in case of disloyalty to the movement.

Anti-euro talk spreads in Italy

Leaving the euro – once a political taboo – is routinely discussed by Italian media, as the campaign for next month's European Parliament elections gets into full swing.

Opinion

Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity

From the perspective of international relations, the EU is a rare bird indeed. Theoretically speaking it cannot even exist. The charter of the United Nations, which underlies the current system of global governance, distinguishes between states and organisations of states.

Opinion

Turkey's election — the Erdoğan vs Kılıçdaroğlu showdown

Turkey goes to the polls in May for both a new parliament and new president, after incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided against a post-earthquake postponement. The parliamentary outcome is easy to predict — the presidential one less so.

Latest News

  1. Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad
  2. Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity
  3. Finnish elections and Hungary's Nato vote in focus This WEEK
  4. EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict
  5. Okay, alright, AI might be useful after all
  6. Von der Leyen pledges to help return Ukrainian children
  7. EU leaders agree 1m artillery shells for Ukraine
  8. Polish abortion rights activist vows to appeal case

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality
  5. Promote UkraineInvitation to the National Demonstration in solidarity with Ukraine on 25.02.2023
  6. Azerbaijan Embassy9th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and 1st Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us