So said the Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, speaking to a press conference. An alpine village in northern Italy has asked the island of Lampedusa, at the other end of the country, to urgently send refugees in order to boost its population to 1, and avoid administrative obliteration under swingeing government cuts.
As part of the cuts, villages and towns with a population of less than 1, will be stripped of their municipal status and forced to merge with neighbouring communities, to the dismay of the mayors and councils of nearly 2, tiny settlements. Acceglio, which lies close to the French border, is one of the towns that faces being wiped off the map β it has a population of just and even that is in danger of dwindling further because many of the inhabitants are pensioners. The mayor, Riccardo Benvegnu, 64, has written to his counterpart on Lampedusa, where more than 40, North African and sub-Saharan refugees have arrived this year, to request that immigrants be despatched north as quickly as possible.
Waves of refugees and economic migrants have managed to reach Lampedusa from the coasts of Tunisia and Libya this year, but whether their dreams of a new life include ending up in a remote mountain village which is snowbound in winter is open to question. The island of Capraia, off Genoa, has threatened to secede from Italy and apply to become part of Corsica rather than lose its council.
The villagers of Filettino, in rugged mountains south-east of Rome, want to declare themselves a principality, to be ruled by a descendant of the deposed Italian royal family, in order to avoid municipal extinction. ANSA β Vicenza, August 26 β Italian tax police have accused a large leather tanning company in the northern city of Vicenza of tax evasion worth million euros.
Police said the Mastrotto Group of companies, which produces cow hides and calf skins for footwear, upholstery, and leather goods, hid more than million euros in undeclared profits and employed around illegal workers. They also claimed that up to 1. The tax evasion investigation arose after police began looking into claims that the company had paid , euros in bribes to officials from the Italian tax collection body, the Agenzia delle Entrate.
