The story of the tragic event that took place in Rome last week in which a Romanian citizen was involved was widely and aggresively covered by the Italian media and accordingly taken advantage upon by part of the Italian political class. The mayor of the Italian Capital City, Walter Veltroni, had been carefully paving the way for the wave of xenophobia Italy is now confronted with in his quest for popularity among the Italian citizens that on the one hand are overwhelmed by the consequences of globalization and europenization and, on the other hand, are still nostalgic for the fascist regime, their last moment of glory in recent history.

The situation in Italy has been constantly deteriorating during the last year and has been cleverly directed towards the outbreak of xenophobia by right-wing politicians. The extreme fragmentation of the Italian party-system after the break down of the Democrazia Cristiana and its consequences has undoubtely contributed to the rise of the level of insatisfaction among the Italian citizens who see themselves in a permanent electoral campaign caracterized by regular, if not weekly, party rallys in Piazza della Republica, next to the fascist symbol: "Altare della Patria". The instability of the present governing coalition led by Prodi, ilustrated by the impossibility to pass some important laws in the Senate which nearly led to Prodi's own resignation this spring, did nothing else but to accelarate the process of increasing insatisfaction and distrust of the citizens in the capabilities of state's institutions to manage their problems. The negative fertility rate that leds to an increasing demand of foreign labor, coupled with the stagnating economy has brought great frustration to Italians who are constantly falling behind more and more EU members.

In this context the immigrants have definetly become the "escape goat" of the frustrated Italian population in search of a new way of affirmation. As a result, the fascist spirit is being revived by clever politicians such as Veltroni, Umberto Bossi or Alessandra Mussolini, the grand-doughter of "Il Duce". They are the most representatives, but they are not by far the only ones, on the contrary, the list is very long and, worst of all, getting longer. This spring in Italy a former MP was preaching the creation of a sort of "civil guards" in each neighbourhood, as a result of the presumably increasing insecurity of the citizens. This is a classic example of the lost of confidence in the state's power to perform one of its main tasks: the protection of the citizens and their properties. But this initiative that I personally witnessed resembles to a great extent to that one in the early '20s, only that in those times the "civil guards" were called "le fasci nere", which was to become later "the fascist movement" that we all know.

The consequences of the Italian right-wing conspiracy can be seen not only in the internal arena, but, worst of all, on the European level. As a result of the defying and unprecedently-aggresive declarations made by Alessandra Mussolini against the Romanian immigrants, the Great Romania Party, member of the "Identy, Tradition, Suveranity" group in the European Parliament which comprises also Alessandra Mossolini's party, decided to withdraw from this group, which equals to its desmemberment.

But maybe the worst consequence of this whole story is that the measures taken by the Italian Government, severly under pressure from the extreme-right, and which are obviously contrary to Directive 38 of the European Commission which stipulated the illegality of such deportations, is likely to establish an extremely dangerous precedent in the EU. Indeed, other European states, encouraged by the lack of reaction of the European Commission or the Parliament to such measures, are preparing to enplace similar ones. It is mainly the case of Great Britain, but other Western European states with large number of immigrants may fallow.

Therefore, the community of those believing in the fundamental principles on which the European Union is built, on its 4 fundamental freedoms of movement (of goods, services, capital and labor), must urgently react and not allow Italy to establish such dangerous precedent by cancelling the piece of legislation that allows the deportation of foreigners considered dangerous without even a trial. This unprecedented crises shows that the European Union is at a cross-roads and it depends on all the stake holders whether it will choose the right paths, or, on the contrary, will make a big step backwords.

by Doru Frantescu Credit photo: silentman/Flickr