Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Who asked, and who decided
There are phrases which, on their own, say more about a state than a Defence White Paper. One such phrase appeared in the Corriere della Sera on 4 October, in an interview with the Chief of the Army General Staff, Lieutenant General Carmine Masiello: “On the eastern flank, we were asked to deploy units capable of providing a real deterrent: we are leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria and are present in Latvia and Hungary. War does not ask for permission, and the contingent must be ready to respond.”
A few lines earlier, the same general had opened the interview as follows: “We are at war. A hybrid war, but war nonetheless.” The attentive reader will pause to consider three words. We have been asked. By whom? Real deterrence. Compared to what deterrence, until now, has been unreal? We are at war. Who has declared it? These are questions that the Italian public debate should ask itself seriously, without indulging either in the caricature of the warmongering military or in the conditioned reflex that treats every doubt as enemy propaganda. The argument put forward in these pages is simple: the idea of direct involvement by Italy and European countries in an armed conflict with Russia is strategic folly, and the bellicose rhetoric that is making it seem conceivable protects no one. It makes the situation worse.
It is best to start with the facts, because the controversy surrounding the interview has misrepresented some of them. The contingents mentioned by Masiello are not a development from the past week. Italy has been participating in NATO’s forward presence in Latvia since 2017 and, since 2022, has been leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria – established following Russia’s conflict with Ukraine alongside those from Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The Madrid Summit in June 2022 then committed the allies to strengthening these groups to brigade level ‘where and when required’. The general’s statement that ‘we were asked’ therefore has a clear source: the Alliance’s planning, approved by the North Atlantic Council, to which the Italian government has given its consent.
Parliament, too, has formally expressed its view. Law 145 of 2016 stipulates that the government must approve international missions annually and that Parliament must authorise them. For 2026, the Council of Ministers’ resolution is dated 14 May; the Chamber of Deputies approved the authorisation resolution on 28 July, for missions valid from 1 January to 31 December. On closer inspection, this situation is more serious than the mere omission denounced by many commentators. Parliament was not bypassed: it was called upon at the end of July to ratify what had been in progress for seven months, as part of a single package bringing together dozens of different missions, from Lebanon to the Horn of Africa. Voting against the eastern flank means, in this context, voting against the whole package. It is a procedure that produces consensus without generating debate.
The problem, then, is not strictly legal. It is political, and concerns the quality of the decision. It is one thing to maintain a contingent in an allied country for reassurance purposes. It is quite another to publicly declare that that contingent must provide ‘real deterrence’ and be ‘ready to respond’ to a war that ‘does not ask for permission’. This shift in function – from a symbolic presence to combat readiness – has not been the subject of any specific parliamentary debate. Italians learnt of it from an interview published at the weekend, in a tone one might use to describe the modernisation of barracks.
A war that no one has authorised
Article 78 of the Constitution is so clear that it sounds almost embarrassing today: ‘The Chambers shall declare a state of war and confer upon the Government the necessary powers.’ Article 11 adds that Italy repudiates war as an instrument of aggression and as a means of resolving international disputes. In this context, the phrase ‘we are at war’, uttered by the head of the Armed Forces, is not merely a lexical detail. Neither House has declared a state of war. No government has been granted extraordinary powers. If words have any meaning, that phrase describes a condition that is not recognised by the legal system.
The contrast with Masiello’s own words from two and a half years ago is striking. In May 2024, in another interview, the general had been unequivocal in the opposite sense: ‘Let’s be clear: we are not at war,’ he had said, referring to a ‘sub-threshold’ conflict. The material reality described then and now is essentially the same: cyber-attacks, sabotage, disinformation, airspace violations. What has changed is the verbal framework. And in international politics, the framework is never neutral. Those who repeat every day that we are already at war accustom public opinion to the idea that actual war is merely the next step on a path that has already begun. This is precisely the process that the literature on threat construction describes as securitisation: a problem is shifted from the ordinary political sphere to that of emergency, where the usual rules – including debate – appear to be a luxury.
It is no coincidence that, in that very interview, the priority highlighted is the distribution to military personnel of a ‘cognitive self-defence manual’ against disinformation. The stated aim is to protect personnel. The side effect is to delimit the scope of what is conceivable: if every voice that questions the necessity of conflict can be interpreted as an emotional lever wielded by the enemy, dissent becomes a security issue. A democracy that fears manipulation should respond with more debate, not less.
Deterrence that produces what it fears
The strategic crux of the matter is the very concept of deterrence. Deterrence works when the adversary perceives our stance as both defensive and credible. It ceases to work – and indeed becomes counterproductive – when the measures a state adopts to feel secure are interpreted by the other as offensive preparations. This is the security dilemma: in a system without a higher authority, many of the means by which a state increases its own security reduce that of others, triggering a spiral that neither actor had intended.
The eastern flank is where this spiral is most visible. From Moscow’s perspective, allied brigades permanently deployed a few hundred kilometres from St Petersburg and the Belarusian border, exercises in the Baltic and attempts to stop Russian ships in transit are signs of encirclement. Putin stated this explicitly at the Valdai Forum in early October, describing the Western manoeuvres in the Baltic as an escalation. One might regard that interpretation as self-serving, and in part it is. But deterrence is not measured by our intentions: it is measured by the perceptions of those who are to be deterred. Ignoring them does not make them go away.
There is also one factor that should be of the greatest concern, and it is Masiello himself who articulates it. In hybrid warfare, the general explains, the risk is ‘not only to suffer, but to slip, by mistake, into an open confrontation’. This is a valuable admission. It means that the Italian military leadership considers the possibility of an unintended war – arising from an accident, a misinterpretation or a chain of automatic responses – to be very real. Thomas Schelling referred to this mechanism as ‘the threat that leaves something to chance’: the more forces are in contact and ready to react, the more control over the crisis slips from the hands of political decision-makers. If the main risk is error, the rational response is to reduce friction and increase the number of communication channels. Yet whilst the readiness of troops near the border is being stepped up, the tone of rhetoric is moving in the opposite direction.
In Moscow, Putin spoke clearly
At the Valdai Forum, Putin reiterated that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone ‘neither in 2029, nor in 2030, nor in 2050’, adding that in the event of an attack, Moscow would respond with all means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons. A few days earlier, in St Petersburg, he had said that Russia is in no way preparing to go to war with Europe. The usual response in the Italian press is that these reassurances are worthless: Formiche pointed out, for example, that even the 1994 Budapest Memorandum contained written commitments that were subsequently breached.
This argument deserves a serious response, not a slogan. No one is obliged to take the statements of a head of state – be they Russian or American – at face value. But mistrust of others’ words does not justify abandoning diplomacy: it makes it all the more necessary. Public statements serve precisely this purpose: to establish commitments that can be verified, negotiated, translated into measures of mutual trust, limits on troop deployments, notifications of military exercises, and direct military lines of communication. This is precisely what Europe did during the decades of the Cold War, with the Helsinki Final Act and the subsequent Vienna documents, when mistrust of Moscow was at least as great as it is today. Responding to every overture by increasing military readiness amounts to choosing not to verify. And those who fail to verify their adversary’s intentions end up planning for the worst-case scenario, which, by dint of being planned for, becomes the most likely outcome.
The reverse is also true. If it is genuinely believed that Russia is preparing an act of aggression against an EU member state, then the matter is of such gravity as to demand a public and parliamentary debate commensurate with its importance, based on the available evidence, intelligence assessments and the alternatives under consideration. Not an interview. The two things are mutually exclusive: either the threat is existential, in which case the nation must be mobilised; or it is not, in which case the language of imminence is a mistake.
To die for whom and for what?
The question currently circulating on social media – whether Italians are prepared to die for the Baltic states or for Zelensky – is phrased brutally, but it hits upon a real issue. European public opinion, and Italian public opinion in particular, has never given an explicit mandate for direct military confrontation with Russia. Surveys in recent years have consistently ranked Italy amongst the European countries most opposed to sending troops and most in favour of a negotiated solution. A democratic system that prepares for war against the prevailing will of its citizens, without even consulting them, accumulates a debt of legitimacy that would be called in at the worst possible moment: precisely when national cohesion is most needed.
Nor is there any need to demonise the Baltic states to recognise the problem. Their perception of the threat has historical roots that a Western European struggles to fully comprehend. The point is another: in a thirty-two-member alliance, the most hardline positions tend to set the tone for the whole, because no government wants to appear the least supportive. Italy has different geopolitical interests, focused on the Mediterranean, Africa, the Balkans and its energy ties with the East. A country in that position has everything to lose from a conflict in the Baltic and nothing to gain. Its historical role, from Andreotti to Prodi, has been that of a mediator, not an outpost. To abandon this role in order to align with the hardline stance is a choice that someone should openly advocate, rather than letting it seep out through an interview.
Finally, there is the practical reality, which the general himself does not hide. Masiello speaks of the return of the ‘importance of mass’: forces are quickly worn down, and without the capacity to replenish them, a prolonged conflict cannot be sustained. In short: a conventional war with Russia would be a war of attrition, fought with ammunition stocks that Europe does not possess and with an industrial base that would take years to reconvert. Against a nuclear power that has just reiterated that it regards nuclear weapons as part of its defence. There is no rational interpretation of Italy’s national interest in which this scenario is acceptable.
Alternatives do exist and do not require naivety. The first is institutional: to separate missions on the eastern flank from the annual budget and subject them to a specific vote, preceded by a public hearing of military and government leaders on the nature of the mandate. If Italian soldiers are asked to be ‘ready to respond’, Parliament has the right and the duty to know to what, under what rules of engagement, and within what limits.
The second concerns language. The military leadership has a responsibility to prepare the forces, not to influence public opinion on the underlying political judgement – namely, whether or not Italy is at war. That assessment is the remit of the constitutional bodies. A return to verbal restraint is not a concession: it is the condition for deterrence to remain defensive even in the eyes of those observing it from Moscow.
The third is diplomatic. Any Russian declaration of non-aggression should be taken at face value in the technical sense of the term: put to the test with concrete proposals for risk reduction, starting with the Baltic, where the density of ships, aircraft and units in close proximity makes an incident more likely than elsewhere. Rome has the credibility and the history to champion such an initiative at European level. The fact that it is not doing so, and that the issue emerges only from the words of a general, is the real cause for alarm in this affair.
The enemy to be feared is not a country a thousand kilometres from our borders. It is the habit – which is taking root here – of deciding on the most serious matters without discussing them, and of presenting them as if they were inevitable; a psychopathology that is dramatically eroding the last remnants of common sense.
Giorgia Meloni has applied to register her voice with the European Union Intellectual Property Office as governments and public figures look for new ways to counter increasingly convincing AI-generated deepfakes.
The Italian prime minister submitted a short audio recording in which she says “Io sono Giorgia Meloni” — “I am Giorgia Meloni” — to the EUIPO on Monday.
The four-second recording forms part of an application for a sound trademark intended to strengthen legal protection against unauthorised use of her voice.
The application filed with the EU intellectual-property system is currently listed as under examination. It is linked to categories including downloadable multimedia material, cultural activities and the organisation of political events.
Registration would not give Meloni ownership over every recording or imitation of her voice, nor would it automatically prevent AI systems from reproducing it.
It could, however, provide another legal basis for challenging certain commercial or misleading uses where the protected sound mark is employed without authorisation.
The distinction between a trademark and copyright is important in this case. Meloni has applied to protect a sound identifier through EU trademark law rather than to establish general copyright ownership over the natural characteristics of her voice.
Her application comes as voice-cloning technology becomes increasingly accessible.
Modern generative-AI systems can create convincing synthetic speech from relatively small samples of recorded audio. The technology is used legitimately for dubbing, accessibility and media production, but it can also be used for fraud, impersonation and political disinformation.
Meloni herself has previously been targeted by manipulated images and other deepfake material. She has also taken legal action in Italy over sexually explicit deepfake images created using her likeness.
The problem has acquired additional importance for politicians because synthetic recordings can be produced and circulated rapidly during election campaigns.
A false recording no longer requires sophisticated audio-editing equipment or extensive access to the target. Public figures provide large quantities of clean audio through speeches, television appearances, podcasts and social-media video — precisely the material needed to train voice-cloning systems.
The EU has already begun imposing specific transparency requirements on synthetic content.
EU Today reported in August that new provisions under the EU AI Act require certain AI-generated or manipulated audio, images and video to be marked in machine-readable form and impose disclosure obligations for deepfake material.
Those rules address transparency rather than ownership.
Trademark law potentially offers a different route by allowing an individual or organisation to claim rights over a specific sound used as a commercial or identifying mark.
Sound trademarks are not new. Companies have long registered jingles, tones and other distinctive audio signatures. What is unusual in Meloni’s application is the attempt by a serving head of government to use the system partly as protection against AI impersonation.
The phrase chosen for the application is itself closely associated with Meloni’s political identity.
“Io sono Giorgia” became widely recognised following a 2019 speech in which she described herself as a woman, mother, Italian and Christian. The phrase subsequently became the basis of online remixes before being adopted as the title of her autobiography.
Other performers have also sought stronger protection for their voices as generative AI improves.
Italian singer Giusy Ferreri has filed a similar application, while actors and musicians internationally have pressed governments and technology companies to prevent unauthorised voice cloning.
Meloni’s filing is unlikely on its own to settle the broader legal question of whether an individual can effectively control AI reproductions of his or her voice.
It does, however, illustrate how existing intellectual-property law is being tested against technology that can reproduce personal characteristics that were previously difficult to copy convincingly.
The EUIPO must now determine whether Meloni’s application satisfies the requirements for registration. Until that process is completed, the filing remains an application rather than an approved EU trademark.
Rome’s latest multi-year fiscal projections put the 2027 deficit at 3.4 per cent of GDP, substantially above the previous target of 2.8 per cent.
The increase follows a planned fall to 2.9 per cent this year, which would bring Italy below the EU’s three per cent threshold for the first time since 2019. The deficit stood at 3.1 per cent in 2025.
The change reflects Italy’s decision to use the EU’s national escape clause, allowing member states under specified conditions to deviate temporarily from their agreed expenditure paths.
Under the latest projections, Rome intends to use fiscal flexibility worth 0.6 per cent of GDP in both 2027 and 2028 for defence and energy-related spending. The additional expenditure amounts to roughly €29 billion across the two years, while the deficit is projected at 3.2 per cent in 2028.
The decision turns a long-running dispute over fiscal flexibility into a test of the EU’s revised budget framework.
The national escape clause was introduced in the 2024 reform of the Stability and Growth Pact. It permits a member state to deviate temporarily from its fiscal path when exceptional circumstances outside its control have a major effect on public finances, provided medium-term fiscal sustainability is not endangered.
The mechanism was subsequently used to give governments greater room to increase defence spending. In 2026, the Commission also moved to broaden its application to energy-security expenditure.
Italy has been among the governments pressing hardest for such flexibility.
In August, EU Today reported that Rome intended to use the available fiscal room fully for energy measures but only partly for defence. The decision illustrated the competition between longer-term military investment and the immediate political pressure created by household and industrial energy bills.
The latest projections make that trade-off larger.
Italy’s annual inflation rate increased to 4.1 per cent in September, from 3.2 per cent a month earlier. Meloni has sought additional room from Brussels to cushion the economic effect of elevated energy costs.
At the same time, the government has improved its growth forecasts.
GDP is now expected to expand by one per cent in 2026, compared with an earlier projection of 0.6 per cent. Growth for 2027 has been revised from 0.6 to 0.8 per cent.
Those figures provide some additional room, but Italy’s debt remains the larger constraint.
Public debt is projected to rise from 138.1 per cent of GDP this year to 138.5 per cent in 2027 before edging down to 137.9 per cent in 2028. The government now expects the debt ratio to begin falling a year later than previously planned.
That leaves Rome in an unusual position. It expects formally to bring its underlying deficit below the EU threshold while headline borrowing rises above three per cent once exceptional spending is included.
Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti has said Rome is discussing with the European Commission how the calculation will affect Italy’s attempt to leave the EU’s excessive deficit procedure.
The Commission will therefore have to judge not only Italy’s fiscal trajectory but how extensively exceptional expenditure can be accommodated under rules Brussels itself has made more flexible.
That question has already generated concern.
EU Today reported last month that the European Fiscal Board had warned that exceptions were beginning to weaken the clarity of the revised rules. The watchdog has been particularly critical of allowing room initially associated with higher defence spending to be extended to energy-resilience measures.
Italy provides one of the clearest examples of the problem.
Rome is trying simultaneously to increase military capacity, protect households and businesses from energy costs and demonstrate that its very high debt remains manageable.
It has also argued that European rearmament cannot proceed unless governments have sufficient room to finance it. The same tension emerged in Italy’s debate over participation in the EU’s SAFE defence loan programme.
The EU has given governments more flexibility to manage those competing demands. Italy’s 2027 budget will show how far that flexibility can stretch before the argument returns to the credibility of the fiscal rules themselves.
Tra vincoli di bilancio, riarmo, debito elevato e crescita debole, l’Italia si trova intrappolata in un circolo vizioso: per finanziare nuove priorità bisogna trovare risorse che sembrano non esserci. E mentre tutti chiedono di proteggere il proprio settore, il conto rischia di ricadere sui servizi pubblici e sul welfare.
C’è qualcosa di profondamente italiano nel modo in cui ci apprestiamo ad affrontare la prossima legge di bilancio: per risolvere i problemi creati dalla mancanza di risorse pubbliche si cercano nuove risorse pubbliche, per trovarle si invoca la prudenza, per essere prudenti si cerca di contenere la spesa, poi ci si accorge che i servizi pubblici funzionano male e allora si annunciano riforme per renderli più efficienti, salvo scoprire immediatamente dopo che anche le riforme, per funzionare, avrebbero bisogno di risorse. È un meccanismo quasi perfetto nella sua circolarità, una sorta di perpetuum mobile della finanza pubblica italiana, con l’unica differenza che il perpetuum mobile dovrebbe produrre energia mentre questo produce soprattutto comunicati stampa, tavoli tecnici e nuovi acronimi.
L’ultimo capitolo di questa commedia è rappresentato dal Documento programmatico di finanza pubblica approvato dal governo il 2 ottobre. Il quadro è quello di un Paese chiamato contemporaneamente a rispettare i vincoli europei, sostenere il costo dell’energia, aumentare gli investimenti nella difesa, contenere il deficit, ridurre progressivamente il rapporto tra debito e PIL, evitare di aumentare ulteriormente la pressione fiscale e, possibilmente, finanziare anche quelle sanità, scuola, previdenza e politiche sociali che da anni vengono indicate come priorità nazionali. Il tutto mentre la crescita prevista rimane relativamente modesta e il debito pubblico continua a collocarsi su livelli molto elevati. Insomma, un programma economico nel quale le priorità aumentano con una velocità decisamente superiore alle risorse disponibili.
Il governo ha annunciato uno scostamento complessivo di circa 29 miliardi nel biennio 2027-2028, destinato in parti sostanzialmente equivalenti all’energia e alla difesa, ridimensionando tuttavia rispetto alle ipotesi precedenti la quota dedicata alle spese militari. Il ministro dell’Economia Giancarlo Giorgetti ha infatti spiegato che lo spazio per la difesa è stato ridotto di circa 7 miliardi rispetto alle previsioni iniziali, mentre il ministro della Difesa Guido Crosetto ha dichiarato di comprendere le ragioni della decisione, lasciando tuttavia aperta la possibilità di un successivo aumento qualora le condizioni lo consentissero. La prudenza, dunque, entra ufficialmente in scena, anche se non è ancora chiarissimo come possa essere prudente un sistema nel quale praticamente ogni attore istituzionale sostiene di avere bisogno di spendere di più.
La questione diventa ancora più interessante se si osserva il contesto internazionale nel quale questa manovra viene costruita. Gli alleati NATO hanno assunto al vertice dell’Aia del 2025 l’impegno ad arrivare entro il 2035 al 5% del PIL destinato complessivamente alla difesa e alla sicurezza, con almeno il 3,5% destinato alle esigenze militari fondamentali e un ulteriore 1,5% a investimenti connessi alla sicurezza. Parallelamente, l’Unione Europea ha introdotto maggiore flessibilità nelle proprie regole di bilancio proprio per consentire agli Stati membri di aumentare la spesa per la difesa. Il messaggio complessivo, quindi, è piuttosto chiaro: l’Europa deve spendere di più per la sicurezza e gli Stati membri devono contribuire a questo sforzo.
Il problema è che l’Italia deve farlo partendo da una situazione finanziaria nella quale i margini di manovra non sono esattamente sconfinati. Secondo il quadro presentato dal governo, il rapporto debito/PIL dovrebbe raggiungere il 138,6% nel 2027, mentre il deficit dovrebbe salire al 3,4% del PIL nello stesso anno, per poi scendere negli anni successivi. La crescita prevista, inoltre, rimane contenuta, con un PIL stimato in aumento dell’1% nel 2026 e dello 0,8% nel 2027. Sono numeri che rendono perfettamente comprensibile la prudenza evocata da Giorgetti, ma che rendono altrettanto comprensibile una domanda molto meno elegante e molto più concreta: se le risorse sono limitate e le priorità aumentano, chi sarà chiamato a rinunciare a qualcosa?
Perché questa è la parte dell’equazione che normalmente tende a scomparire dal dibattito pubblico. Si parla molto di quanto bisogna spendere per la difesa, di quanto si debba spendere per l’energia, di quanto si dovrebbe ridurre la pressione fiscale e di quali incentivi sarebbe opportuno introdurre per i giovani, ma si parla molto meno della conseguenza inevitabile che deriva dalla somma di tutte queste richieste. Se le entrate non crescono abbastanza e non si vuole aumentare ulteriormente il debito, ogni nuova priorità deve necessariamente sottrarre spazio a un’altra. Non esiste, nella contabilità pubblica, una voce chiamata “desideri della maggioranza” dalla quale prelevare i miliardi necessari.
Ed è qui che entra in scena il grande protagonista silenzioso della vicenda: il welfare.
Naturalmente nessuno, o quasi nessuno, dirà mai che bisogna sacrificare il welfare. La parola è diventata troppo impopolare e troppo politicamente costosa. Si preferiscono espressioni decisamente più rassicuranti, come “efficientamento”, “razionalizzazione della spesa”, “riorganizzazione dei servizi”, “ottimizzazione delle risorse” e altre formule linguistiche che hanno il grande pregio di non specificare immediatamente chi dovrà rinunciare a cosa. Il problema è che, al di là delle parole utilizzate, i numeri rimangono numeri.
La Commissione Europea ha evidenziato, nel suo quadro sull’Italia, come una parte consistente della spesa pubblica sia assorbita dalla protezione sociale e dal servizio del debito, rilevando al tempo stesso una diminuzione, rispetto al 2019, della quota della spesa complessiva destinata a sanità ed educazione. Nel 2024, secondo la Commissione, la sanità rappresentava il 13,2% della spesa pubblica complessiva, contro il 13,8% del 2019, mentre l’istruzione si collocava all’8%, contro l’8,2% del 2019.
A questo punto si manifesta il paradosso italiano in tutta la sua eleganza. La sanità non funziona abbastanza bene? Bisogna riformarla. Le liste d’attesa sono troppo lunghe? Bisogna efficientare il sistema. La scuola presenta problemi strutturali? Occorre modernizzarla. I giovani guadagnano poco? Bisogna incentivare le assunzioni. Le famiglie fanno sempre più fatica? Occorrono nuove misure di sostegno. Perfetto. Il problema è che tutte queste riforme, incentivi e misure costano denaro, mentre contemporaneamente il bilancio dello Stato viene sottoposto alla necessità di trovare spazio per nuove priorità, comprese quelle militari.
È come chiedere a un’automobile con il serbatoio quasi vuoto perché non riesca a percorrere altri cinquecento chilometri e concludere che il vero problema sia la scarsa efficienza del motore. Naturalmente un motore può essere migliorato, e naturalmente la pubblica amministrazione può essere resa più efficiente. Ma esiste una differenza piuttosto importante tra migliorare l’efficienza di un sistema e pretendere che un sistema produca continuamente più servizi con meno risorse.
Questa differenza rischia di diventare decisiva proprio nel caso del welfare. Una sanità sotto pressione può certamente avere problemi organizzativi, ma non è ragionevole pensare che ogni inefficienza sia riconducibile a un eccesso di spesa o a una cattiva gestione. Una scuola che deve formare generazioni di studenti con risorse limitate può essere riformata quanto si vuole, ma non può trasformare il personale, gli edifici e le ore di insegnamento in una variabile puramente astratta. Lo stesso vale per la previdenza, per le politiche familiari e per tutti quei servizi pubblici che vengono continuamente chiamati a fare di più proprio mentre il loro spazio finanziario viene sottoposto a nuove pressioni.
Il problema, dunque, non è semplicemente che l’Italia spenda poco o tanto in un determinato settore. Il problema è che il Paese sta cercando di perseguire contemporaneamente un numero crescente di obiettivi strategici con una base economica che cresce molto lentamente. Ed è qui che il gatto comincia realmente a mordersi la coda.
Per aumentare la spesa militare occorre trovare spazio di bilancio. Per trovare spazio di bilancio occorre aumentare le entrate, aumentare il deficit oppure ridurre altre voci di spesa. Aumentare il deficit, tuttavia, incontra i limiti della governance economica europea e si scontra con un debito pubblico già molto elevato. Aumentare le tasse significa agire su una pressione fiscale che politicamente si vorrebbe invece ridurre. Ridurre la spesa significa inevitabilmente intervenire su qualche settore che qualcuno considera prioritario. E così si torna al punto di partenza: tutti chiedono che il proprio settore sia protetto, ma non esiste alcuna possibilità matematica di proteggere tutto allo stesso modo.
Nel frattempo, la maggioranza continua naturalmente a fare il proprio mestiere. Forza Italia insiste sulla riduzione della pressione fiscale e auspica una manovra non restrittiva; la Lega propone misure come la tassazione agevolata degli aumenti salariali dei giovani e l’anticipo pensionistico; Noi Moderati guarda agli under 30 e propone l’azzeramento delle tasse per i neoassunti. Sono proposte politiche legittime e perfettamente comprensibili, ma la loro somma racconta qualcosa di interessante: nel dibattito italiano praticamente ogni categoria viene considerata una priorità.
Il problema è che uno Stato può avere molte priorità politiche, ma non può avere un numero infinito di priorità finanziarie.
E così arriviamo al vero cortocircuito. Da una parte si chiede allo Stato di ridurre la pressione fiscale, sostenere i giovani, aiutare le famiglie, migliorare la sanità, finanziare la scuola, sostenere la crescita e proteggere le pensioni; dall’altra parte si chiede allo stesso Stato di aumentare rapidamente gli investimenti nella difesa, rispettando gli impegni internazionali assunti nell’ambito NATO e sfruttando gli spazi concessi dalle nuove regole europee. Nel frattempo il debito rimane elevato, la crescita è modesta e il margine di manovra fiscale non è infinito.
È qui che la discussione dovrebbe diventare finalmente adulta: non chiedendosi soltanto quali siano le priorità, ma stabilendo quali priorità debbano essere finanziate, con quali risorse e a quale costo per le altre.
Perché ogni euro destinato a un nuovo obiettivo pubblico deve arrivare da qualche parte. Può arrivare da una maggiore crescita, che però richiede tempo e non può essere ordinata con decreto; può arrivare da maggiori entrate fiscali, che però contraddicono almeno in parte la volontà di ridurre la pressione fiscale; può arrivare dal debito, che però significa trasferire il costo nel futuro; oppure può arrivare dalla riduzione di altre spese. La quinta possibilità, quella che consiste nel finanziare tutto contemporaneamente senza che nessuno paghi il conto, rimane per ora confinata al territorio dei miracoli.
È proprio qui che si trova il paradosso più grande dell’attuale situazione italiana. Se si comprimono gli investimenti in sanità, istruzione, servizi e politiche sociali, poi si rischia di dover spendere di più per compensare le conseguenze di quella stessa compressione. Una popolazione che rinuncia alle cure perché il sistema pubblico non riesce a garantire tempi adeguati non diventa automaticamente più produttiva; un giovane che riceve una formazione peggiore non diventa automaticamente più competitivo; una famiglia che riduce consumi e investimenti perché il proprio reddito disponibile è insufficiente non alimenta automaticamente la domanda interna. E un’economia che cresce lentamente non genera magicamente le maggiori entrate fiscali necessarie a finanziare nuove politiche.
Il circuito, quindi, può diventare perverso: meno crescita significa meno entrate, meno entrate significano meno spazio di bilancio, meno spazio significa maggiore pressione sulle spese, la pressione sulle spese può tradursi in servizi peggiori e servizi peggiori possono produrre maggiori costi privati per cittadini e imprese. Quei maggiori costi, a loro volta, possono deprimere ulteriormente consumi, investimenti e produttività. A quel punto si torna nuovamente alla crescita debole dalla quale si era partiti.
Il gatto ha completato il giro.
La questione non è, naturalmente, stabilire se la sicurezza nazionale sia importante. Lo è, e l’Italia ha assunto impegni internazionali precisi che devono essere discussi e valutati anche alla luce delle trasformazioni dell’ordine strategico europeo. La questione è molto più semplice e, proprio per questo, molto più scomoda: quale modello di Stato l’Italia può realisticamente permettersi?
Perché gli impegni internazionali possono aumentare, le esigenze di sicurezza possono aumentare, i costi dell’energia possono aumentare e gli interessi sul debito possono aumentare. Quello che non aumenta automaticamente, però, è il PIL. Il PIL non riceve una telefonata dalla NATO, non legge le comunicazioni della Commissione Europea e non si commuove davanti alle richieste dei partiti di maggioranza. Cresce soltanto quando esistono condizioni economiche, produttive e finanziarie che consentono di farlo.
Ed è forse questo il punto che il dibattito politico tende più spesso a evitare. Si può chiedere alla sanità di funzionare meglio, alla scuola di formare meglio, ai giovani di lavorare di più, alle imprese di investire, alle famiglie di fare più figli, alla pubblica amministrazione di diventare più efficiente e allo Stato di spendere maggiormente per la sicurezza. Ma se contemporaneamente si chiede al bilancio pubblico di spendere meno, al contribuente di pagare meno tasse e al debito di diminuire, prima o poi qualcuno dovrà spiegare quale sia la variabile destinata a fare il miracolo.
Probabilmente verrà convocato un tavolo tecnico.
Seguirà una spending review.
Poi un credito d’imposta.
Successivamente un bonus.
Infine nascerà un nuovo acronimo, possibilmente incomprensibile – ed ovviamente in inglese –, che permetterà di annunciare che il problema è stato finalmente affrontato.
E nel frattempo il gatto continuerà a mordersi la coda.
Il rischio è che, dopo qualche anno di questo esercizio, non rimanga più molto gatto.
E nemmeno molta coda.
Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.
EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
Italy brought back border controls with Spain in August, and has now extended them until at least 15 October. Giorgia Meloni’s government fears that migrants who arrived in Ceuta, reach the continent and Italy.
Are these restrictions legal in the Schengen area? What are the EU’s levies to avoid such controls?
Since 1 August, Italy has temporarily reintroduced controls at its air and sea borders with Spain. The measure has now been extended until 15 October. In return, Spain has also introduced controls at its air and sea borders with Italy.
“This is not against Spain” the Italian foreign affairs minister Antonio Tajani said, adding “we have a duty to protect our borders.”
The starting point was the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta at the end of July. Italy said it was concerned about possible secondary movements towards the rest of Europe, and brought back controls at its borders with Spain.
But from a legal point of view, EU countries can’t simply reintroduce border controls whenever they want.
The Schengen area is based on the principle of free movement, meaning there should normally be no checks at internal borders. The Schengen Borders Code provides an exception. If a country faces a serious threat to public policy or internal security, it can temporarily reintroduce border controls, as a measure of last resort.
The controls can initially be introduced for up to 30 days, and can then be extended under certain conditions.
Italy has already extended its measure, which has now been in place for more than two months.
What does the European Commission say about Italy’s decision? The Commission has been asked about the Italian controls and says it is currently assessing the situation.
But the Brussels-based organisation The Good Lobby argues that Italy is violating the Schengen rules. It filed a complaint with the European Commission, asking it to open an infringement procedure against Italy.
According to Alberto Alemanno, who filed the complaint, there is no security threat that would justify bringing back the controls.
His argument is that none of the migrants who arrived in Ceuta were transferred to Italy. And, he says, people travelling between Ceuta and mainland Spain are already subject to identity checks.
So Italy’s justification, he argues, does not meet the conditions set out in the Schengen Borders Code.
Now, is Italy the only EU country bringing back border controls? No. If you look at the notifications sent by EU countries to the European Commission, around ten countries have reported temporary controls at some of their internal borders in recent months.
In response to the situation in Ceuta, Italy is the main example.
Austria also notified the Commission of controls in September, citing the situation in Ceuta among several reasons. But those controls concern its land borders with Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia.
So Austria is not checking passengers arriving by air from Spain.
Germany, for example, has invoked the same exception in the Schengen rules to carry out controls at its land borders with all its neighbours.
That does not mean that every border crossing is closed, or that every traveller is systematically checked. It means German authorities can carry out checks at those borders, including spot checks.
Germany’s main justification is continued migratory pressure, alongside other security concerns. And for now, the Commission is kind of letting all of this happen. It did raise concerns at some point: in June, the Commission published an assessment of temporary border controls in nine EU countries, including Germany, Austria and Italy.
It did not formally declare these countries’ controls illegal. Instead, it called on them to work towards lifting the controls, arguing that the EU has put in place measures to address some of the risks being invoked to justify them.
Those measures include the new Migration and Asylum Pact and new rules on entry and border management. The bigger question, then, is how long temporary border controls can remain in place before they stop being an exception to Schengen and become the new normal.
A 46-year-old man of Bangladeshi origin is accused of aggravated sexual violence against his minor daughter in Brescia province, Italy, after investigators say years of abuse left her pregnant before she turned 15.
According to Italian newspaper Giornale di Brescia, the preliminary hearing opened at the Palace of Justice in late September 2026. The defendant, held since February in Cremona prison’s section for those accused of sexual offenses, requested an abbreviated trial conditioned on a proposed compensation payment to the victim. That request is scheduled for discussion on Jan. 19. DNA tests and police interviews with the girl, assisted by social services, supplied further corroboration that the father had impregnated his daughter.
The case surfaced in early 2026 when the mother took the girl to the emergency room at Brescia’s Civil Hospital for severe abdominal pain. Doctors determined she was pregnant and notified police. Italian police arrested the father after initial checks. Italian newspaper Il Giornale described the allegations as prolonged abuse beginning when the girl was a child.
The paper stated that inside the hospital, she told staff that he “had forced her to undergo sexual acts since she was a child. First he would subjugate her, then he would move on to groping, finally he began full intercourse. It was precisely during one of these sexual relationships that she became pregnant.”
Laura D’Urbino, president of Brescia juvenile court, said the court becomes involved in such situations both because of the daughter’s age and because the pregnancy involves a close relative.
This is not the first serious case of sexual violence from a Bangladeshi man in the Italian city. A separate case in the Brescia-area from 2024 involved a different 29-year-old Bangladeshi man and a 10-year-old girl of sub-Saharan origin inside a reception center in Collio. He was sentenced to five years in prison, however, the victim was not his daughter.
The post Italy: Bangladeshi man arrested for raping and impregnating his 15-year-old daughter in Brescia appeared first on Remix News.
A 15-year-old Italian student named Matteo was attacked by eight teens with a migrant background outside his school in Cesena, in the province of Forlì-Cesena, Italy, according to a report from the Italian news outlet Fuori dal Coro. During the attack, Matteo suffered life-changing injuries from machete and knife blows that left him disfigured, required more than 100 stitches, and left him unable to realize his dream of becoming a pilot.
His mother has since appeared on national television, stating that her boy “is no longer the boy he was before.”
Matteo was living in the school’s boarding facility while attending the Technical Institute of Aeronautics in nearby Forlì. He was exercising with two friends when a group of eight minors, aged 15–17 at the time and all from the Cesena area, approached. They arrived on four mopeds or scooters, some wearing hoods or balaclavas.
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 28, 2026
During the attack, Matteo suffered life-changing injuries that left him disfigured, requiring 100 stitches.
The suspects are currently… pic.twitter.com/oZ92Nxzr0K
Two of them initially demanded payment of a €45 debt for hashish that a “young foreigner” in the group had sold him. Matteo refused, saying the product was of poor quality. The rest of the group then joined in what prosecutors described as a premeditated punitive expedition.
CCTV footage captured the assault, which lasted under 10 seconds and has since been replayed on Italian news networks.
The group surrounded Matteo, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. One attacker used a machete on his face and hands; others used a large knife, described in some reports as a kitchen knife, and a telescopic baton. Matteo tried to protect himself with his hands. The attackers then fled.
Matteo suffered permanent damage to three fingers on one hand. He also suffered a deep slash starting near the ear, crossing the left cheek, and reaching the neck. This required maxillofacial surgery and damaged the parotid gland, requiring repeated drainage at Bufalini Hospital in Cesena. During a Fuori dal Coro report, the network interviewed Matteo’s mother and reported that he received more than 100 stitches in total, with the attack resulting in permanent facial scarring.
Doctors noted that covering his face with his hand likely saved his life by preventing the blade from severing a major artery. However, he is no longer medically eligible to become a commercial pilot, the career he had been training for.
Despite the serious nature of the attack, the host of Fuori dal Coro said, “The incredible thing is that these eight defendants are free.”
Matteo’s mother replied, “Yes, the eight defendants are awaiting trial while remaining free.”
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 7, 2025
The store owner, Emiliano, says he has been robbed many times before.
He warned that criminals are getting young and younger.
Source: Italian media outlet Fuori dal coro. pic.twitter.com/14ggVScnxc
She said her son is trying to move forward, but “he is no longer the boy he was before. He still suffers major physical and psychological consequences. The wounds on his face and hand are visible and disabling. Beyond those, there are deeper wounds: his fear, the loss of his peace of mind, and the difficulty in trusting others. He had to rewrite his future, completely upending all of his plans.”
Matteo’s mother conveyed this story while footage of her son’s attack was looped in the background of their interview, highlighting the horror he experienced at the hands of the youths of foreign origin.
Given that the attack happened at the boarding school, it is presented as an illustration of a deteriorating security situation in schools across Italy and Europe amid mass immigration.
Matteo was forced to change schools and left the boarding facility after four years there. He also lost a school year because of treatment and recovery. Because of ongoing psychological issues caused by the attack, his family has paid for private psychological care and medical expenses.
Fuori dal Coro openly uses the term “maranza,” a slang label in Italy for a street style often associated with second-generation immigrant youth, who frequently have a North African background. These gang youths often have Italian citizenship but are linked to petty crime or more serious violence.
They have not been held in pre-trial detention and remain free while awaiting proceedings. Neither they nor their parents have contacted Matteo’s family or apologized.
Prosecutor Simone Purgato of the Bologna Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office charged them with aggravated serious injuries, permanent facial disfigurement, carrying weapons, private violence, attempted extortion, and related drug offenses.
The mother has described the lack of any remorse from the attackers or their families and the ongoing trauma for her, her son, and their family. She emphasized that they seek accountability rather than revenge. Local officials, including the mayor of Medicina, condemned the “cowardice of the pack.”
Due to the perpetrators’ ages, they are likely to receive far lighter sentences if found guilty than they would if they were adults.
The post ‘He is no longer the boy he was before’ – Italian 15-year-old left disfigured after 100 stitches, 8-member youth gang attacked him with machete appeared first on Remix News.
Press TV – September 24, 2026
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s admission that some 5,000 sorties were flown from European bases in support of US military aggression against Iran proves that Europe formed part of the infrastructure of that aggression.
In a post on X on Thursday evening, Gharibabadi wrote that the NATO chief’s remarks demonstrated Europe’s role in enabling the illegal US campaign.
“Governments that placed their territory at the disposal of the United States cannot evade their responsibility,” he said. “This participation will not go unanswered.”
Rutte has repeatedly acknowledged that thousands of US military flights, between 4,000 and 5,000, departed from bases in Europe during the US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic, which began on 28 February.
He described Europe as a “platform of power projection” without which Washington could not have conducted the operation.
Countries including Italy, Romania, the United Kingdom, France and Germany were cited in connection with the use of bases, airspace, tankers and logistics.
Iran has consistently described the US-Israeli assault as an unprovoked act of aggression in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.
Tehran has stressed that providing territory, bases or infrastructure to an aggressor state itself constitutes participation in the act of aggression, as recognized under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately warned European officials in New York of the severe and long-term consequences of facilitating and supporting US and Israeli war crimes, both in Gaza and against Iran. He noted that submitting to a bully never satisfies that bully.
A 46-year-old Nigerian woman stabbed an Italian police officer in the chest and was charged with attempted mass killing after she opened three gas cylinders in her apartment in Verdello, Italy.
The woman also flooded the rooms fo the apartment building.
Officers responded around 1:15 p.m. Sept. 18 to reports of a dispute at a building on Via Adua that houses 12 mostly migrant families. Officers detected a strong smell of gas and found the third-floor apartment flooded, with broken glass and exposed electrical wires.
Inside, the woman was completely naked, in an agitated state, and shouting incoherent phrases. She grabbed a 24-centimeter kitchen knife from a sofa and lunged at a corporal after one officer slipped on the wet floor, striking him in the chest. The officer was unharmed because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Additional officers and emergency medical workers arrived, sedated the woman and took her to Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo. Tests showed she was positive for cannabis but found no psychiatric conditions. Doctors determined she suffered from acute substance intoxication.
Firefighters sealed the building and declared it unusable until it could be made safe due to the various exposed gas canisters.
When questioned, she said she opened an extra canister for cooking and kept a knife to “defend herself from black magic,” according to BergamoNews.
A tenant who entered the apartment after a power outage found the woman with a rope around her neck. The same tenant later said she attacked him with the knife, shouting, “I’ll kill everyone.”
Authorities continued to investigate the motive.
The post Italy: Naked Nigerian woman stabs police officer, charged with attempted mass killing after opening 3 gas canisters appeared first on Remix News.
After a 20-year-old Italian citizen of Egyptian origin allegedly raped a 12-year-old boy, the child’s relatives used convenience store surveillance footage to identify the suspect and later stabbed him in the legs. The Egyptian-Italian suspect was arrested and confessed to sexually assaulting the boy in a public park in Turin’s northern outskirts, authorities said.
The suspect, who is homeless and has a record of minor property crimes, was arrested Monday while riding an electric scooter in Turin’s Barriera Nizza neighborhood. He faces charges of aggravated sexual violence and remains in pretrial detention at Lorusso e Cutugno prison pending a judge’s review of the arrest.
According to police and the boy’s account, the assault occurred Friday afternoon, Sept. 18. The man approached the child in a courtyard of public housing in the Barriera di Milano district, offering a ride on his scooter and free candy. After traveling about a kilometer, he led the boy to an isolated wooded area of Parco dell’Arrivore along the Stura River and raped him for several minutes, investigators said.
The pair then stopped at a minimarket on Strada Settimo, where surveillance cameras recorded the man buying two bags of chips and two Monster Energy drinks for the boy.
“I bought you these things but, remember, you mustn’t tell anything to your family,” the suspect later told police he said to the child.
The boy returned home in tears and told his mother, who immediately contacted police. Relatives then circulated images of the man on social media and organized a search. On Saturday night, a group of men confronted and stabbed the suspect in the legs, according to his statements to investigators.
“There were at least ten people, I was afraid,” he told officers. Police are separately investigating the stabbing, according to La Repubblica.
The 20-year-old, who had been required to report regularly to police because of prior offenses but stopped appearing after Friday, admitted the rape during questioning.
“Yes, it was me, but I was under the effect of drugs, I wasn’t myself,” he said, according to Italian news outlet La Stampa. In a later court appearance, he expressed regret, saying he was “worn out, sorry and repentant” and could not explain how it happened.
A number of right-wing politicians expressed outrage over the incident, as Remix News reported yesterday. Members of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party held a vigil near the park without party banners.
“What happened should unite everyone in condemning an extremely hateful act, but above all in protecting a minor,” lawmaker Augusta Montaruli said. The League party called the case “a horror that leaves us stunned” and renewed its long-standing demand for chemical castration of convicted sex offenders.
The post Italy: Family of 12-year-old rape victim tracked down suspect of Egyptian origin and stabbed his legs appeared first on Remix News.
A 20-year-old Italian citizen of Egyptian origin has been arrested in the Italian city of Turin on suspicion of repeatedly raping a 12-year-old boy in Parco dell’Arrivore. In response, major right-wing parties are calling for remigration, more security, and even chemical castration.
Officers from the Barriera Nizza precinct detained the suspect overnight on Monday, three days after the attack on Friday, Sept. 18. In police custody, the man confessed to all the crimes in the case, according to authorities. The man is charged with aggravated sexual violence and is being held in Turin prison pending a validation hearing.
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 22, 2026
Police say the suspect lured the boy with a free scooter ride home before committing rape with intercourse against the boy's will.
The suspect… pic.twitter.com/ekeJTcRb31
Investigators say the boy was playing in the courtyard of the public-housing block where he lives in the Barriera Milano district when the older male approached him on an electric scooter and offered him a ride. The two traveled approximately a kilometer to Arrivore Park, a green strip along the Stura River that residents have long described as poorly patrolled by police after dark. There, in an isolated spot, the boy was raped with penetration.
Italian news outlet La Stampa reported that the suspect admitted luring the child with the new scooter, taking him to the park, and forcing him into sex against his will. He later told police he had been under the influence of drugs.
After the assault, surveillance cameras recorded the pair at a mini-market on Strada Settimo, where the suspect bought the boy bags of chips and Monster energy drinks. La Stampa said that footage, together with cameras along Via Botticelli, showed the child in a red T-shirt and shorts and the suspect in a black hooded sweatshirt. Shop staff also confirmed that the two had been in the store.
The boy told friends and then his mother, which led the mother to immediately call the police.
“My son did not know that person,” she said. “The fact that he had not yet been caught gave me no peace.”
The suspect is a second-generation Italian, unemployed and without a fixed address. He had prior convictions for property crimes and was under a reporting obligation, which he observed until the day of the attack. From Friday onward, he stopped signing in. Officers later found him riding the same scooter in the neighborhood.
Brothers of Italy politicians held a protest in the vicinity of the park where the rape occurred. There, a number of politicians from the party called for more funding for police and increased patrols in the area.
Enrico Forzese, of the right-wing Futuro Nazionale party, called for “sweeps, remigration and more checks” in areas he described as high-crime.
The League party separately renewed its demand for chemical castration of rapists and pedophiles.
The case remains under investigation.
The post Italian-Egyptian man arrested for raping 12-year-old boy in Turin park, right-wing parties call for chemical castration and remigration appeared first on Remix News.
A 30-year-old Tunisian man charged with raping a jogger in a public park outside Turin has failed to appear at his latest court hearing and can no longer be located more than two years after the attack, Italian court officials reported.
The defendant, who has not been publicly named, missed a Sept. 17 hearing at a Turin court, where he is accused of sexual violence in the June 29, 2024, assault and rape in Luserna San Giovanni.
Italian media outlet Turino Today indicates that the man may have already left Piedmont and returned to Tunisia but his current whereabouts are unknown.
According to the prosecution’s account presented in court, the 40-year-old woman was running in a municipal park in late afternoon when a man grabbed her from behind. The struggle quickly turned violent. Prosecutors say he sexually assaulted her and fell onto her during the fight, fracturing her legs. She bit his arm through a red T-shirt. He then fled.
A carabinieri officer who responded testified that the woman could not stand.
“I was among the first to intervene,” the officer told the court. “I remember that the woman could not stay on her feet because of the fractures to her legs. I supported her while we waited for the ambulance.”
Police found the suspect after patrol officers noticed a man walking with his partner with a wound resembling a bite mark, leading the officers to suspect that the man may have been the rape suspect. Officers said he appeared nervous. At his home, he broke down in tears, showed the bite marks and handed over the clothing he said he had worn during the attack, including the red shirt the victim had described. Taken to the station, he confessed to the crimes in the case.
In court, the victim’s husband said that the rape and assault dramatically changed life for his wife, him, and their children.
“For at least a year, she could only walk on crutches. She suffered so much,” he said.
The woman’s sister told the court: “I was informed by phone of what had happened. My sister is a rock, but nothing is the same for her anymore. The same goes for us: these are things that mark you, there is no going back.”
The first judge did not impose pretrial detention on the suspect. Reporting on the ruling, the judge cited the man’s cooperation, the fact that he was not arrested in the act, the absence of a prior criminal record, and a finding that there was no concrete flight risk.
The post ‘She suffered so much’ – Tunisian migrant charged with raping a female jogger in a public park disappears during trial appeared first on Remix News.
Login