Anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement (M5S) leader Beppe Grillo on Tuesday kept up his
campaign to get Italy to leave the euro after spurring
controversy with an anti-immigrant rant that included a call for
all migrants to have medical tests.
Grillo said Italy must exit the euro to avoid a
Greek-style financial meltdown.
"Let's take back monetary sovereignty and emerge from the
nightmare of bankruptcy via default... to not end up like
Greece," Grillo, who has launched a drive for Italy to hold a
referendum on the euro, said on his blog.
"Out of the euro or default. There are no alternatives.
The interest on the public debt is killing the country and
dismantling the welfare state".
The comedian-turned-politician returned to his popular
blog, which gave life to the Internet-based M5S in 2009, a day
after causing a stir on it by calling for undocumented migrants
to be expelled from Italy if they are not found to be genuine
refugees.
"People who enter Italy on migrant boats are perfect
strangers," said Grillo, whose movement captured a quarter of
the vote at last year's general election.
"They should be identified immediately. The refugees
should be accepted, the others, the so-called illegal
immigrants, should be sent back to where they come from.
"People who enter Italy should be subject to an obligatory
medical upon arrival to protect their health and Italian
people's health".
The Democratic Party (PD) of Premier Matteo Renzi shot
down the referendum proposal, saying such a ballot was
proscribed by the constitution.
"Over and above the value of the proposal, which is
abstruse to say the least (...), we remind the Genoese comic and
his distracted advisors that the Constitution does not allow
referendums to be called on matters and subjects governed by
international treaties," said PD MP Federico Gelli.
Grillo's hard line on migrants has drawn parallels with the
separatist, rightwing Northern League, which is also calling for
Italy to drop the euro and to halt the arrival of undocumented
migrants.
But Grillo recently knocked back an offer from League
leader Matteo Salvini to meet for talks on the issues the two
parties agree on.
Meanwhile another controversy continued, about Grillo's
latest batch of expulsions from a movement he periodically
purges.
On Monday Grillo on Monday expelled four activists after
they 'occupied' the stage at the movement's recent Circus
Maxiumus rally.
The four - Giorgio Filosto, Orazio Ciccozzi, Pierfrancesco
Rosselli and Daniele Lombardi - "took advantage of their role as
security officers to occupy the stage," Grillo wrote on his
blog.
The rebel group unfurled a banner saying #occupapalco
(#occupy the stage) to protest Grillo's allegedly high-handed
leadership.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi reacted by saying the purge
was "embarrassing".
He said the four were not espousing "a different line but
merely asking what the party leadership structure was".
The M5S's Deputy House Speaker Luigi Di Maio hit back by
charging that Renzi "manipulates everything he can".
The M5S heavyweight poured scorn on the government's pledge
Sunday to give a tax break of 80 euros a month to new mothers.
"Matteo Renzi manipulates everything he can, we know him
very well," Di Maio said, "he is a person who only makes
announcements to cover the pigs' mess that he has done, for
instance with the stability law and the health cuts, and forcing
the local authorities to increase taxes for Italian citizens".
Renzi "is the person who announces the bonus to new
mothers in a measure that doesn't exist to cover the fact that
Italian women will have to give birth in hospitals that have
suffered more spending cuts".
The people expelled from M5S "were four people who were
not even elected to the 5-Star Movement who betrayed our trust
and to whom we have prohibited the use of the party symbol".
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