By Marianne Arens, 12 September 2019
The Conte II cabinet will continue the previous government’s murderous refugee policy, militarisation, and austerity measures dictated by the EU and Italian banks.
By Alex Lantier, 5 September 2019
Cobbled together in backroom deals to avoid elections while continuing austerity and attacks on refugees, this government is no alternative to its far-right predecessor.
Five Star Movement and social democrats to continue attacks on Italian working class in new government coalition
By Peter Schwarz, 30 August 2019
The new government, if it is actually formed, will only accelerate the lurch of Italian politics to the right.
By Mike Head, 29 August 2019
The alliance is an attempt to prevent early elections and clear the way for an austerity budget to impose deeper cuts on the working class.
By Marianne Arens, 22 August 2019
The most important task of a new government is to present an EU-compliant budget by October 15, which will require massive cuts at the expense of the working class.
By Peter Schwarz, 21 August 2019
The problems and tasks facing the international working class as a whole are revealed in Italy as if under a microscope.
By Marianne Arens, 14 August 2019
On August 20, the Senate will hold a confidence vote on the current government, after far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini broke the governing alliance.
By Marianne Arens, 10 August 2019
In a surprise coup, the leader of the Lega is attempting to carry out a shift to the right and to prepare fascistic forms of rule.
By Marianne Arens, 3 August 2019
With the full support of the unions, Italy’s government and major investors are preparing to implement sweeping attacks on Alitalia’s workforce in the name of retaining the company as a “national airline.”
By Marianne Arens, 1 July 2019
A few hours after the arrest, mayor of Naples Luigi di Magistris dedicated a sailing boat parade to the brave captain “and all other men and women being unfairly persecuted.”
By Marianne Arens, 20 June 2019
Pia Klemp, who has rescued about 5,000 people in distress in a total of six missions, faces up to 20 years imprisonment and heavy fines.
By Peter Schwarz, 14 June 2019
The dispute over Italy’s state debt has flared up once again following the European elections.
By Allison Smith, 9 April 2019
Miguel Roldán Espinosa, a Spanish firefighter, is under criminal investigation and faces a potentially lengthy prison sentence.
By Marianne Arens, 6 April 2019
The fascists, who feel emboldened by the Italian government, enjoy little support among the population.
By Marianne Arens, 22 March 2019
The “reddito di cittadinanza” (citizen income) is a vanity project of the co-governing Five-Star Movement that will not change Italy’s stark social inequality.
By Marianne Arens, 11 March 2019
Some 200,000 people demonstrated last Saturday in Milan against the right-wing coalition government, which closes ports to immigrant vessels and lets people drown in the Mediterranean.
By Marianne Arens, 26 February 2019
There are concrete material interests behind the sharp tensions between France and Italy, which in February led to France recalling its ambassador in Rome.
By Marianne Arens, 14 February 2019
The march was supported by workers, retirees and school students who want to fight the government’s right-wing policies. But the union leaders, Democratic Party representatives and pseudo-left politicians lent the rally a pro-business orientation.
By Alex Lantier, 8 February 2019
The decision to recall the French ambassador to Italy points to an accelerating collapse of relations between the major imperialist powers of Europe.
By Bill Van Auken, 16 January 2019
Bolivia’s role in what amounted to an extra-judicial rendition is emblematic of the sharp rightward turn of what remains of Latin America’s “Pink Tide” governments.
By Bill Van Auken, 14 December 2018
Netanyahu’s hailing of Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Salvini as a “great friend of Israel” demonstrates the affinity between the Zionist state and neo-fascism.
By our reporters, 24 November 2018
Amazon workers launched strikes and protests in Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, France and the UK.
By Peter Schwarz, 22 November 2018
If the financial markets impose further interest-rate increases on Italian government bonds, it could lead to a chain reaction of bank bankruptcies across the whole of Europe.
By Allison Smith, 1 November 2018
A protest against deteriorating conditions in Rome followed on the heels of a 24-hour “Black Friday” general strike by public sector workers.
By Alexandre Lantier and Marianne Arens, 24 October 2018
The EU’s first-ever decision to formally strike down the budget of a member state points to growing class and international tensions tearing the EU apart.
By Marianne Arens, 20 October 2018
In the conflict over the Italian budget, the EU Commission takes the side of the banks, stock exchanges and credit agencies, while the government pursues a course of militarism and attacks on immigrants and workers.
By Marianne Arens, 19 October 2018
The right-wing coalition government has ordered the removal of all migrants from the “village of hospitality” in southern Calabria.
By Allison Smith, 10 October 2018
The arrest of Domenico Lucano, the mayor of a small town in the Calabria region of Italy, sparked pro-immigrant protests across Italy this past weekend.
By Alejandro López, 20 September 2018
While weakly criticising applause from Podemos of the Salvini government’s policies, the Pabloites are only concerned that it would expose them to criticism from the left.
By Allison Smith and Marc Wells, 20 September 2018
The government and private bridge operator received repeated warnings about the bridge’s structural integrity.
By Alejandro López, 18 September 2018
Weeks after Sahra Wagenknecht launched the anti-immigrant #Aufstehen movement, figures in Podemos are discussing alliances with right-wing forces.
By Allison Smith, 5 September 2018
Italy’s largest banks are heavily exposed to Turkey’s economy through nearly €20 billion in loans, many of which are going into default.
By Marianne Arens, 30 August 2018
The state attorney in Agrigento is investigating Italy’s interior minister and chairman of the Lega (League), Matteo Salvini, on charges of deprivation of liberty, illegal detention and abuse of office.
By Marianne Arens, 17 August 2018
Leaders of the right-wing coalition government of Lega and the FiveStars Movement rushed to the city to pretend concern for the victims ofthe tragedy.
By Allison Smith, 17 August 2018
The deadly vehicle crashes—caused by sheer greed for profit at the expense of the labourers—are linked to the extremely right-wing course of the government in Rome.
By Allison Smith, 15 August 2018
The death toll has reached 35, with at least seven seriously injured and 440 forced to evacuate their homes following a gas leak.
Based on a horrific 1988 murder in Rome
By Emanuele Saccarelli, 30 July 2018
Dogman is a serious attempt to deal with a difficult, and in this climate not especially promising subject.
By Alex Lantier, 25 June 2018
This is only one of the horrors taking place in Mediterranean waters between Italy and Libya, as the EU moves to block refugee flows.
By Marianne Arens, 23 June 2018
Salvini’s project of a Roma card index recalls one of the darkest periods in European history, drawing its inspiration directly from the vicious measures of Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime.
By Marianne Arens, 22 June 2018
The closure of Italian ports to civilian rescue ships goes hand in hand with the lies and slanders made against NGO rescue ships.
By Marianne Arens, 19 June 2018
The unspeakable tragedy playing out in the Mediterranean will only be made worse by the new restrictions on rescue ships.
By Athiyan Silva and Alex Lantier, 18 June 2018
While making empty criticisms of Rome’s callous refusal to help 629 refugees trapped aboard the Aquarius, Macron is stepping up France’s offensive against refugees.
By Marianne Arens, 12 June 2018
A decree by the new right-wing Italian government has prevented a ship with more than 600 refugees from landing in Italy. It is the result of the entire EU refugee policy.
By Marianne Arens, 9 June 2018
Young immigrant shot just hours after Italy’s new far-right government took office.
By Marianne Arens, 6 June 2018
In Italy, the new government of the Lega and the Five Star Movement is due to take power following a final vote of confidence in parliament on Wednesday.
By Peter Schwarz, 2 June 2018
The new Italian government sworn in yesterday in Rome is the most right-wing since the fall of the fascist Duce Benito Mussolini in 1945.
By Marc Wells, 1 June 2018
The policies adopted in the new government's program reflect the neo-fascist character of Lega as well as the law-and-order approach of the Five Star Movement.
By Alex Lantier, 31 May 2018
President Sergio Mattarella said he would not install a technocratic government without first trying to form a coalition between the Five Star Movement and the far-right Lega party.
By Alex Lantier, 30 May 2018
Financial markets are panicking and protests are being called, as bitter divisions inside the Italian bourgeoisie erupt to the surface.
By Peter Schwarz, 29 May 2018
For now, the attempt to form a government of the Five Star protest movement and the far-right Lega in Italy has failed.
By Peter Schwarz, 23 May 2018
On Sunday, the protest Five Star Movement (M5S) and the right-wing extremist Lega agreed on a joint government programme.
By Marianne Arens, 19 May 2018
The ultra-right extremists and Beppe Grillo’s protest movement intend to deport half a million immigrants and eliminate tens of thousands of public sector jobs.
By Allison Smith, 15 May 2018
Last year, 22 buses were destroyed by fire in the Italian capital and 2018 is already on track to being far worse, with four bus fires in a single month.
By Peter Schwarz, 12 May 2018
In Italy, the right-wing extremist Lega and the Five Star protest movement are negotiating the formation of a joint government. A result is expected at the beginning of next week.
By Marianne Arens, 8 May 2018
The second attempt to form a government failed on May 3 when the leadership of the Democratic Party rejected a coalition with the Five Star Movement.
By Marianne Arens, 21 April 2018
Six weeks after the March 4 parliamentary election there is still no new Italian government in sight.
By Marianne Arens and Peter Schwarz, 30 March 2018
The protest movement Five Star and the far-right League have moved closer together. They might now form a coalition government.
By Peter Schwarz, 7 March 2018
Decades of austerity and attacks on democratic rights by the official “left” in Italy, aided and abetted by its pseudo-left apologists, have produced an electoral victory by the far-right parties.
Right-wing parties benefit from anger over austerity, inequality
By Marianne Arens, 6 March 2018
Amid growing popular disaffection with the centre-left parties and their pseudo-left apologists, Sunday’s parliamentary election resulted in a victory for the right-wing and extreme-right forces.
By Alex Lantier, 5 March 2018
Yesterday’s general elections in Italy have produced a hung parliament and a historic collapse of the ruling social-democratic Democratic Party.
By Peter Schwarz, 3 March 2018
Unless the polls are proved wrong, tomorrow’s parliamentary election in Italy will usher in a new stage in the crisis and instability of the European Union.
By Marianne Arens and Peter Schwarz, 2 March 2018
The driving force behind this new Italian electoral alliance is Rifondazione Comunista, which for many years played a crucial role in stabilising the bourgeois order and suppressing the class struggle.
By Peter Schwarz, 28 February 2018
All the political problems that confront workers and young people across Europe are expressed in concentrated form in the elections to be held in Italy this Sunday.
By Marianne Arens, 15 February 2018
Some 20,000 protesters, many of them young people, participated in an anti-fascist march through the town of Macerata Saturday.
By Peter Schwarz, 30 December 2017
Italian President Sergio Matarella dissolved parliament on Thursday, opening campaigning for the election which will take place in the first week of March.
By Marianne Arens and Peter Schwarz, 14 December 2017
Around 10,000 demonstrators protested last Saturday in the northern Italian city of Como against the “Black Wave”, the increase of neo-fascist attacks throughout the country.
By Marianne Arens, 16 November 2017
The Social Democrats received just 13 percent of the vote in the Sicilian regional election.
By Marianne Arens, 23 October 2017
After both Maroni and Zaia claimed victory, Maroni said the outcome meant both regions could unite their forces for “the battle of the century.”
By Marianne Arens, 1 September 2017
Although the earthquake on Ischia only measured 4 on the Richter scale, many buildings were reduced to rubble, two people died and 42 were injured.
By Marianne Arens, 19 August 2017
Returned to Libya, impoverished immigrants face execution, torture, rape, blackmail and abandonment in the middle of the desert.
By Alex Lantier, 5 August 2017
This mission points to the rising danger of a new imperialist intervention in Libya carried out by competing European powers.
By Marianne Arens, 29 July 2017
The Italian government is demanding that NGOs involved in the rescue of refugees sign a “Code of Conduct,” restricting their activities in the Mediterranean Sea.
By Marianne Arens, 1 July 2017
With turnout below 50 percent, the election result is a huge vote of no confidence in the governing Democratic Party and the entire so-called centre-left camp.
By Marianne Arens, 12 June 2017
A new electoral law, agreed on by Italy’s four main parties, was rejected by the chamber of deputies on Thursday after two days of debate.
By Marianne Arens, 5 May 2017
In a recent vote two-thirds of Alitalia pilots, flight attendants and ground crew rejected planned job cuts and pay cuts.
By Marianne Arens, 25 February 2017
Sinistra Italiana has been formed out of Nichi Vendola’s SEL. Its role is to defend bourgeois rule, the European Union and the euro in their deepest crisis to date.
By Marianne Arens, 2 February 2017
The government, which is under pressure from the EU and urgently needs time to get the acute banking crisis in Italy under control, opposes moving up the vote.
By Marianne Arens, 16 January 2017
The European Parliament deputies of Italy’s Five Star Movement were to have shifted from a euroskeptic to a pro-European group. But they now find themselves back in the euroskeptic camp.
By Marianne Arens, 5 January 2017
Rarely has a party been so thoroughly unmasked as Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Rome.
By Alex Lantier and Marianne Arens, 23 December 2016
As Europe slides ever deeper into slump, tens of billions of euros are to be handed to the financial aristocracy in a bailout that only sets the stage for more social attacks.
By Marianne Arens, 13 December 2016
At the head of a transitional government, Gentiloni will continue the policies of his predecessor Matteo Renzi, particularly in dealing with the massive banking and debt crisis.
By Nick Beams, 10 December 2016
The move increases the odds of a government bailout that would impose major losses on small investors and bondholders.
By Nick Beams, 9 December 2016
President Mario Draghi emphasised that “uncertainty prevails everywhere” and it was very difficult to assess the long-term impact of the “radically new administration” in the US.
By Marianne Arens, 8 December 2016
Italy’s Senate voted in favour of the budget and thus cleared the way for Renzi’s resignation.
By Peter Schwarz, 7 December 2016
The “No” vote in Sunday's referendum has thrown Italy, together with the EU, deeper into political crisis.
By Alex Lantier and Mark Wells, 5 December 2016
The vote on Renzi’s referendum, which was rejected by a margin of 59 to 41 percent, expresses growing opposition to the institutions of European and world capitalism.
By Joint statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain), Parti de l'égalité Socialiste (France) and Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Germany), 3 December 2016
The referendum would give the prime minister virtually unchecked powers to impose his party's agenda, in a major step towards authoritarian forms of rule.
By Nick Beams, 29 November 2016
Finance capital sees the referendum as a test of whether Prime Minister Renzi can push though “market restructuring” of the banking system and deepen attacks on the working class.
By Marianne Arens, 28 November 2016
The constitutional reform, a step toward authoritarian rule, is the key element of the program of Prime Minister Renzi.
By Martin Kreickenbaum, 19 November 2016
Turning refugees away from Europe’s coasts and leaving them to drown in the Mediterranean is a crime that exposes the EU’s true brutality.
By Marianne Arens, 18 November 2016
Beppe Grillo, the initiator of the Five-Star Movement, joins a long chain of right-wing and far-right politicians who have welcomed the election of Donald Trump.
By Martin Kreickenbaum, 7 November 2016
Amnesty International has accused the Italian security forces of using torture and ill-treatment to force refugees to be fingerprinted.
By Marc Wells, 31 October 2016
At 7:41 a.m. on Sunday, Italians in the central area of Marche and Umbria were woken by a violent earthquake, measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale.
In run-up to constitutional referendum
By Marianne Arens, 29 October 2016
The latest earthquake has disrupted Matteo Renzi’s referendum campaign for December 4.
By Marianne Arens, 4 October 2016
Italy is experiencing a wave of strikes by rail workers, flight attendants and teachers that are also directed against the traditional unions.
By Marianne Arens, 1 October 2016
The referendum is a step towards authoritarian forms of rule and lays the basis for fierce attacks on Italian workers.
By Marianne Arens, 10 September 2016
Two weeks after the earthquake in central Italy on August 24, it is clear that the devastation and loss of life was not due to a “natural disaster” but corruption and government indifference.
By Marianne Arens, 31 August 2016
Basing itself on a new “anti-terror” law, the Renzi government is deploying Italian soldiers in Libya without the consent of parliament.
By Marianne Arens, 26 August 2016
Italy’s civil defence organisation and volunteers continue to dig in the hope of saving those still buried alive.
By Marianne Arens, 25 August 2016
At least 200 have died, hundreds are still missing, thousands were injured and tens of thousands have been left homeless.