The government met with
praise, some from an unlikely source, on Wednesday after
unveiling a plan to counter terror with one billion euros
invested in culture to match one billion spent on security.
A day after Premier Matteo Renzi announced the move, to be
included in the 2016 budget bill, the government stressed that
the two-billion-euro plan was an investment "in the security of
today and of tomorrow".
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said the plans to
invest a billion euros in security and a further billion in
culture starting from next year were the "best response" the
government could have made to the November 13 Paris attacks that
killed 130.
"It is an immediate proposition, not one for the future,
and I believe it is the best response the premier could give,"
Franceschini said.
The measures announced by Renzi on Tuesday as an amendment
to the 2016 budget bill currently before parliament mean
"investing in the security of today, but also of the future. I
consider it an important asset", he said.
The one billion on culture includes a 500-euro 'card' for
an estimated half million people who will turn 18 next year to
spend on cultural activities.
Culture "overcomes barriers, creates common ground between
different countries, religions, languages, histories",
Franceschini explained.
"It is a way of responding to those who wanted us to lower
our quality of life by ceasing to go where we enjoy ourselves
and follow our passions," the minister added.
The leader of Italy's biggest and most leftwing trade
union, Susanna Camusso of CGIL, also, perhaps surprisingly,
lauded Renzi's announcement.
But she said she was afraid the announcement might be more
of a soundbite than a reality.
"Renzi's slogan that for every euro on security a euro must
go on culture is right, but the way he unveiled it seems more of
an advertising commercial," she said on the sidelines of a
conference on currency and legality.
Meanwhile Education Minister Stefania Giannini said current
circumstances in Italy don't warrant putting extra security
measures in place at the nation's schools.
"As of now there are no grounds for the Italian government
to take exceptional measures in terms of material and individual
safety, school by school," Giannini said, adding that conditions
in Belgium and France, where measures have been taken, are
different to those in Italy.
"In our case security takes place on other fronts, (Renzi)
gave a very clear message. Security and education are two tools
that go side by side. That of education and culture, from our
point of view, is more powerful".
Giannini said Italy brought a "precise proposal to
structure a common curriculum at the European level that would
have as its theme education on European citizenship" to the EU
Council of Education Ministers.
Also on Wednesday, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said
Wednesday that the additional two billion euros Renzi has
pledged to spend on security and culture depends on the European
Commission granting Italy's request to use the flexibility
clause in the EU budget rules.
"Guaranteeing security has a double dimension, culture
and security," Padoan told the Schengen committee.
"The billion plus a billion announced by the premier will
be in the budget law to the degree that Europe grants the (use
of) the clauses we have requested.
"We are working on the basis of the hypothesis that Europe
gives the green light".
Padoan said Italy was not asking for too many concessions
from the European Commission, stressing that it respected the EU
budget rules.
"It is often said that Italy asks for too much," Padoan
told the Schengen committee.
"I reiterate that it is asking for what is possible
within the European rules and it is one of the few countries who
meet the necessary conditions to be able to ask for it".
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