No one asking FdI to remove Flame symbol - Tajani

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 28 - Antonio Tajani, deputy premier, foreign minister and president of three-time ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, on Sunday denied press reports that the European People's Party (EPP), to which FI belongs, had asked Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party to remove its neofascist tricolor flame symbol from its logo in order to facilitate a possible alliance between the EPP and Meloni's European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group for next year's elections to the European Parliament.
    "After the European elections in 2024, I'm thinking of an alliance between the Popular Party, Conservatives and Liberals.
    "A path that can be repeated. A negotiation on the symbol is out of the realm of reality. No one has asked anyone for anything, I can absolutely deny it," said FI no 2 Tajani at business daily Il Sole 24 Ore's Festival dell'Economia in Trento, commenting on rumours about the alleged request to Fdi to remove the Flame, which is seen as representing that on top of Mussolini's tomb, from the symbol in order to join the European alliance.
    The FdI's logo features the Tricolour Flame first used by the postwar neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) party, formed by members of Mussolini's movement.
    Meloni says the Italian right has "handed Fascism over to history" and has condemned its suspension of democracy and the "ignominious" racial laws.
    She sees FdI as akin to Britain's Tories and the US Republican Party.
    Meloni restored the 'Fiamma' to the logo when she formed FdI in 2012, after a previous rightwing post-fascist party had removed it. (ANSA).