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Local Italy
03-07-2025
- Climate
- Local Italy
Italy limits outdoor work as deadly heatwave continues
Outdoor working was banned during the hottest hours of the day in many Italian regions this week, while the labour ministry announced it would extend similar measures nationwide. Health and safety rules aimed at protecting people at work during heatwaves, particularly those working outdoors, were strengthened under a new 'heat protocol' drawn up by ministers along with representatives from trade unions and employers' associations. Shifts and working hours must be reorganised during heatwaves, with employers required to provide increased training and risk assessment, under rules set to come into force under a ministerial decree in the coming days. 'Our priorities are health and safety at work, in particular work which must be carried out outdoors," Labour Minister Marina Calderone stated. The protocol 'promotes good practices in order to prevent accidents and illnesses connected to extreme weather.' The move to bring in national legislation came after more than half of Italy's regions this week banned work outdoors during the hottest hours of the day. The industrial regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna stopped open-air work between 12.30pm and 4pm, joining 11 other regions – from Liguria in the north-west to Sicily in the south – that had imposed similar bans in recent days. Italian trade union CGIL urged authorities to take action after a 47-year-old construction worker died on a building site near Bologna, while two others were rushed to hospital after falling ill in Vicenza, Veneto. In Palermo, Sicily, a 53-year-old woman died on Monday after collapsing while walking along a street. She reportedly suffered from a heart condition. A 70-year-old man was reported to have drowned at a tourist resort near Turin as intense heat gave way to storms and flash floods in the area. Italy's emergency units this week saw a 20 percent rise in admissions, with the majority of patients presenting heatstroke symptoms and severe dehydration. A total of 18 cities, including Rome, Milan and Florence, were under a maximum-level 'red' heat warning on Thursday, with highs forecast of up to 40C in parts of the centre and south.
Local Italy
01-07-2025
- Business
- Local Italy
Italy to issue close to 500,000 non-EU work visas over next three years
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government said a total of 497,550 work visas would be issued over the 2026-2028 period, starting with around 165,000 in 2026. This was up from the 450,000 visa quota set by the government for the 2023-2025 period. Meloni, the leader of Italy's Brothers of Italy party, has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants entering Italy. But her government has also increased pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers in a bid to tackle labour shortages in an ageing country with a sluggish birth rate. Over half (around 267,000) of the total number of visas set to be made available over the next three years would be destined for seasonal workers in the agricultural and tourism sectors, the government said. Italy's main agricultural lobby, Coldiretti, welcomed the new visa plan as an "important step forward to ensure the availability of workers in the fields [and] food production". But a top official of Italy's largest trade union, CGIL, said the new quota did not address migration dynamics and labour needs. Maria Grazia Gabrielli stressed that the number of visa applications has been far lower than the available quotas in recent years. Between 2023 and 2024, only 7.5 to 7.8 percent of the visas made available by Italy's Ministry of Labour were converted into residency permits, she said in a statement. Gabrielli criticised the government's policy of prioritising applicants from countries that discourage their nationals from illegally migrating to Italy. A 2023 decree established special immigration quotas for nations helping Italy fight human traffickers and conduct media campaigns warning of the dangers of crossing the Mediterranean. Gabrielli said the system "takes no account whatsoever of migration dynamics and the need for a response that does not focus on punitive logic and rewards". Italy's immigration policies have long been fraught with weak spots and vulnerabilities, with criminal networks known to exploit the system to bring migrants into the country illegally. Gabrielli said a structural reform was needed to help employers recruit foreign labour and protect workers from traffickers.
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Italy limits outdoor work as heatwave breaks records across Europe
Thirteen Italian regions have banned outdoor working during the hottest parts of the day; June temperature records have been smashed in Spain and Portugal; and schools in parts of France have been closed, as an extreme heatwave continues to grip large swathes of Europe. Tens of thousands of people have also been evacuated from their homes in Turkey due to wildfires; while the top of the Eiffel Tower was closed to tourists on Tuesday as temperatures in Paris were poised to hit 38C (100.4F). Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, two northern Italian industrial hubs, announced on Tuesday that they were stopping open-air work between 12.30pm and 4pm, joining 11 other Italian regions – stretching from Liguria in the north-west to Calabria and Sicily in the south – that have imposed similar bans in recent days. Local authorities were heeding advice from trade unions after the death of Brahim Ait El Hajjam, a 47-year-old construction worker, who collapsed and died while working on a construction site close to Bologna, the Emilia-Romagna capital, on Monday. The CGIL Bologna and Fillea CGIL unions said in a statement: 'While we wait to learn the actual cause of death, it is essential, during this terrible period, to promote a culture of safety. The climate emergency has clearly worsened the conditions for those who work outside every day and companies must give absolute priority to the protection of workers.' The measures vary from region to region but include a halt on outdoor activities on construction sites, quarries and farms during the stipulated hours. Attilio Fontana, the president of Lombardy, said: 'Our priority is to protect the health of workers, especially during times like these when the heat becomes particularly unbearable.' Vincenzo Colla, councillor for work in Emilia-Romagna, said: 'Protecting workers is our responsibility.' A 53-year-old woman died on Monday after fainting while walking along a street in Palermo, Sicily. She reportedly suffered from a heart condition. A 70-year-old man was reported to have drowned at a tourist resort close to Turin as intense heat gave way to storms and flash floods. French national rail operator SNCF said train travel between France and Italy had been suspended for 'at least several days' after violent storms on Monday, AFP reported. Cogne, a town in the Aosta Valley that suffered severe flooding in June last year, has been cut off by a landslide. Admissions to hospital emergency units in some Italian regions has risen by 15-20% in recent days, with the majority of patients being elderly people suffering from dehydration. The Spanish state meteorological agency, Aemet, said in a social media update that 'June 2025 smashed records' when it comes to high temperature, with an average temperature of 23.6C, 0.8C above the previous hottest June in 2017. The monthly average was also 3.5C higher than the average over the period from 1991 to 2020, it said. The agency's comments come just days after Spain's highest ever June temperature of 46C was recorded in the Huelva province of Andalucía. In Portugal, temperatures hit 46.6C in Mora, a town in the Évora district, in recent days, making it the highest June temperature ever recorded in the country, according to the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere. In France, the prime minister, François Bayrou, tried to calm anger at the heatwave crisis in French schools. More than 1,896 schools across the country were fully or partially closed on Tuesday as classrooms proved dangerously hot for children and teachers, amid anger from teaching unions. In Paris, which was on maximum heatwave alert, parents were advised to keep their children home on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some other towns including Troyes and Melun closed all their schools. Bayrou said the education ministry would open talks with mayors on how to adapt school buildings, most of which are extremely poorly insulated. As temperatures rose on Tuesday, some Paris teachers had nothing more than a water spray on their desk to repeatedly spritz children in classrooms in the hope of keeping cool. Bayrou, who is separately facing a vote of no confidence on Tuesday, which he is expected to survive, has cancelled his meetings to monitor the situation in real time. Other cities across Europe continent are also experiencing higher than usual temperatures, including Zaragoza (39C), Rome (37C), Madrid (37C), Athens (37C), Brussels (36C), Frankfurt am Main (36C), Tirana (35C) and London (33C). Turkey's forestry minister, İbrahim Yumaklı, said firefighters had been called out to 263 wildfires across the country in recent days. Firefighters have also been tackling wildfires in parts of France and Italy, especially on the islands of Sardinia and Sicily.
Irish Times
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Italy to vote in two-day referendum on citizenship and labour reforms
Italians will start voting on Sunday in a two-day referendum on whether to ease citizenship laws and reverse a decade-old liberalisation of the labour market, but the vote may fail to generate sufficient turnout to be deemed valid. Opposition leftist and centrist parties, civil society groups and a leading trade union have latched on to the issues of labour rights and Italy 's demographic woes as a way of challenging prime minister Giorgia Meloni 's right-wing coalition government. They gathered more than 4.5 million signatures, according to the CGIL labour union – far more than needed to trigger the referendum, which will comprise five questions: four on the labour market and one on citizenship. However, opinion polls suggest they will struggle to persuade the required 50 per cent plus one of the electorate to turn out to make the outcome of the vote binding. Ms Meloni and senior government ministers have indicated they will not vote. READ MORE 'Meloni is afraid of participation and has understood that many Italians, even those who voted for her, will go to vote,' said Elly Schlein , leader of the main opposition Democratic Party (PD), who is spearheading the campaign along with Maurizio Landini, the CGIL labour union chief. A Demopolis institute poll last month estimated turnout would be in the range of 31-39 per cent among Italy's roughly 50 million electors – well short of the required threshold. 'Securing a quorum will be hard. The opposition's minimum aim is to show strength and bring to vote more people than the 12.3 million who backed the centre-right at the 2022 general election,' said Lorenzo Pregliasco, from YouTrend pollsters. The citizenship issue has garnered most public attention in a nation where concerns over the scale of immigration helped propel Ms Meloni's anti-migration coalition to power in late 2022. The question on the ballot paper asks Italians if they back reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship by naturalisation to five years from 10. This could affect about 2.5 million foreign nationals, organisers say. [ 'Trump likes this German': Merz Oval Office test gets approval back home Opens in new window ] With Italy's birth rate in sharp decline, economists say the country needs to attract more foreigners to boost its anaemic economy, and migrant workers feel a lot is at stake. 'If you just look at the time frame, five years are a huge gain for us migrants, if compared to 10,' said Mohammed Kamara, a 27-year-old from Sierra Leone who works in a building construction company in Rome. Francesco Galietti, from political risk firm Policy Sonar, said keeping such rules tight was 'an identity issue' for Ms Meloni, but she was also being pushed by business to open up the borders of an ageing country to foreign workers. 'On the one hand there is the cultural identity rhetoric, but on the other there are potential problems paying pensions and an economy that relies on manufacturing, which needs workers,' he said. The questions regarding the labour market aim to make it harder to fire some workers and increase compensation for workers laid off by small businesses, among other things, reversing a law passed by a PD government a decade ago. The leaders of two of the governing coalition parties, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of the League, have said they will not vote on Sunday, while Ms Meloni, who heads Brothers of Italy, will show up at the polling station but will not vote. 'She will thereby honour her institutional duty but avoid contributing to the quorum,' said pollster Pregliasco. – Reuters
Local Italy
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Local Italy
Italy's opposition warns of 'democratic crisis' after low referendum turnout
The citizenship referendum, along with four others relating to workers' rights held over June 8th and 9th, drew just over 30 percent of the electorate – far lower than the threshold of more than 50 percent required for their results to be valid. Maurizio Landini, leader of Italian trade union CGIL which had promoted the referendums, slammed the low turnout as a sign of a "clear democratic crisis" in Italy. But the result was celebrated as a victory by Italy's hard-right coalition government, which strongly opposed the proposed reforms and had publicly called on its supporters to boycott the vote. "YOU LOST" Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party posted to Facebook shortly after the results were announced on Monday afternoon, with the letters superimposed over a picture of opposition party leaders who had supported the reforms. Meloni announced last week that she would go to her polling station but not vote in any of the referendums, saying that abstention was 'a right for everyone'. "I don't agree with the subjects of the referendums and, as has always been the case in the nation's history, when you don't agree, abstention is also an option," she said. Of 77 referendums held over the past 50 years, only 39 met the voter threshold, and only four of those were held in the past 30 years. It's unclear how much of an impact the government's abstention campaign had on the turnout in this referendum. Riccardo Magi, leader of the centrist +Europa party, which had campaigned for the citizenship reform, said that "organised abstentionism strengthened by spontaneous abstentionism and lack of information" had won the day. Lorenzo Pregliasco, head of political polling agency Youtrend, told Huffpost Italia that the results showed that the referendum is "a tool in crisis". But there were other factors at play, he warned. "The referendum was politicised, particularly in the last few weeks [...]; the campaign wasn't inclusive of voters who weren't necessarily on the left," he said. "This may have pushed out those voters who were less militant and could have made the difference." It's not uncommon for politicians in Italy to tie support for a referendum to support for their own party – a strategy that's been known to backfire. In 2016, former PM Matteo Renzi was forced to step down after he said that a vote for his referendum on constitutional reform was a vote of confidence in his leadership – and lost. "The only real goal of this referendum was to bring down the Meloni government. In the end, however, it was the Italians who brought you down," Brothers of Italy wrote in the caption to their Facebook post. Meanwhile Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, did her best to present the result as a win for the opposition. "More voters voted for these referendums than those who put Meloni in government in 2022," she told reporters on Monday evening. "Politics that celebrates abstention only hurts itself." Following Monday's result, calls for a reform of referendum rules came from both ends of the political spectrum. "We may need to change the referendum law, we probably need more signatures, not least because we spent so much money to send millions of ballots to Italians abroad that went unused,' said Deputy PM Antonio Tajani. Under current rules, if a petition to change the law collects 500,000 signatures, the government must hold a public vote – which was the basis for introducing the referendum on citizenship. Others said the solution wasn't to lower the threshold for staging a referendum but to lower or even eliminate the voter threshold (or quorum). 'We'll need to adopt a different approach" given that 'no referendum has reached the quorum in recent years,' Benevento Mayor Clemente Mastella said. New rules should include the 'lowering of the quorum, which now seems almost impossible to reach,' he added.
