A heatwave bulletin
Back to normal next week
Dear readers — just a quick placeholder this week, I’m afraid, as I’m writing this post halfway up a mountain in deepest Lunigiana with precarious internet and (blissfully) limited access to the news. There are, however, a few stories to flag. So let’s get to it.
It’s been a week of navel gazing: Meloni is still struggling to maintain her composure, and political leverage, as EU leaders sideline her party in the allocation of European top jobs. Numerous sources are reporting that, despite the hype, the Prime Minister is “more isolated than ever at the EU level”; a dynamic that will surely impact on her capacity to influence the bloc’s future policy. Meanwhile Elly Schlein and the opposition are pondering the French elections, where a left wing coalition successfully united around a ‘republican front’ to see off the (immediate) far right threat. Naturally, pundits and party leaders are wondering: could the Italians pull off a similar feat? This piece by Alessandro De Angelis offers a sceptical take.
In the Mediterranean, NGOs are struggling to ensure effective search and rescue missions amidst a huge surge in refugee boats. Arrivals are already beginning to spike this summer — beyond all projections — with 2,400 people having been saved in North African waters in the past ten days alone (as ever, do follow organisations like Sea Watch and SOS Humanity on Instagram for real time updates and information on how you can support the rescue operations).
Finally, in somewhat trashier news, Matteo Salvini has put forward a proposal to rename Milan Malpensa airport “Silvio Berlusconi airport”, much to the ire of, well, just about everyone. The infrastructure minister has said the move would “honour a great man… a friend” but it’s hard not to see this as anything other than a weak shot in a generally tedious culture war. More than 121,000 people have signed a petition to block the proposal, including Marco Grimaldi, a Green MP, who had these words to offer:
“Who knows if minister Salvini is aware that Rome’s Fiumicino airport is named after Leonardo da Vinci, Venice’s after Marco Polo, and Genoa’s after Christopher Columbus. Then there’s Sandro Pertini for Turin airport, Catullus for Verona, Marconi for Bologna, Galileo for Pisa and last but not least Falcone and Borsellino for Palermo. I for one would be ashamed to take a flight from Falcone and Borsellino airport and land at Silvio Berlusconi airport.”
That’s it for now. It’s swelteringly hot here with temperatures currently in the upper 30s and a heatwave projected to intensify for at least the next few days. So stay cool out there — slap on that factor 50 — and I’ll be back with a full update, as usual, next week.
A presto
Jamie
I’m Jamie Mackay, a UK-born, Italy-based writer, working at the interfaces of journalism, criticism, poetry, fiction, philosophy, travelogue and cultural-history. I set up ‘The Week in Italy’ to make a space to share a regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds, to explore politics, current affairs, books, arts and food. If you’re a regular reader, and you enjoy these updates, I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter for EUR 5.00 per month. I like to think of it as a weekly catch-up chat over an espresso. Alternatively, if you’d like to send a one-off something, you can do so via PayPal using this link. Grazie!