Govt meets parties, regions for talks on Xmas measures

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 1 - Premier Giuseppe Conte's government is holding a series of meetings on Tuesday as it prepares a new decree with the COVID-19-linked rules that will be in force during the festive season and the restrictions that will apply regarding issues such as movement between regions and the opening of shops, bars and restaurants.
    Conte, Health Minister Roberto Speranza and Relations with Parliament Minister Federico D'Incà are meeting the parliamentary whips of the parties supporting the government at 15:00.
    The executive is also set to have a meeting with the regional governments on Tuesday.
    One of the issues the Conte government will have to address regards whether to reopen Italy's ski slopes for the festive season.
    The regions that have ski resorts are pressing hard for the pistes to be reopened, saying the damage will be irreparable if the Christmas business is lost.
    But the government appears reluctant to concede, due to fears of possibly feeding a third wave of contagion, like contact made during summer holidays contributed to the arrival of the second wave. Veneto, Piedmont Valle d'Aosta, Lombardy, Friuli Venezia Giulia and the autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Trento have proposed a compromise in which Italy's ski slopes would only be open to hotel guests and people who own holiday homes in the mountains.
    Italy is currently operating a three-tier system of restrictions based on each region's COVID-19-contagion risk factor, high-risk red zones, medium-high orange zones and moderate-risk yellow zones.
    Three regions, Lombardy, Piedmont and Calabria, moved from red to orange at the weekend, meaning non-essential shops could reopen.
    In addition to the tier-based restrictions, the government has imposed nationwide measures, including the closure of bars and restaurants at 18:00, distance learning for high-school students and a curfew, which kicks in at 22.000 and runs until 6:00 every day.
    Speranza has said that he expects the curfew to still be in force at Christmas and on New Year's Eve..
    "It's a measure that is in force and I think it should be confirmed," Speranza told Mediaset television.
    "It is a measure that has enabled us over the last few weeks to start the gradual, tough path of bringing down the (contagion) curve".
    When asked if the curfew will be valid even for the faithful going to midnight mass, Speranza replied: "if there's a curfew, there's a curfew".
    "It won't be a Christmas like all the others," he continued. "We have to speak the truth. "We are in the middle of a highly significant epidemic". (ANSA).