Tag: Sicily

MEP Donato husband found strangled in Palermo

Blog, EU, Europe

Brussels 26.05.2024 The Italian MEP Francesca Donato husband – architect Angelo Onorato,54, – found dead yesterday afternoon in his car with a plastic band around his neck, blood stains were found on his shirt while there were no traces of a struggle inside the car.

According to the first body inspection carried out by the medical examiner, the entrepreneur died of suffocation. The autopsy, ordered by the deputy prosecutor Ennio Petrigni who coordinates the investigation, will provide more details.

There are currently two main hypotheses: murder or suicide. However, the latter is not taken into consideration by his family and friends.
“They killed my husband Angelo” Donato told her close ones when they called her to find out what happened.
Further in the evening when she was taken to the Flying Squad offices to be interviewed, she repeated “”Angelo didn’t kill himself”, insisting that the was not a suicidal type of character.

Even the people who were with Onorato at the start of summer party organized by the tennis club on Friday May 24 evening speak of a serene and happy person. However the hypothesis of suicide is not discarded by the operatives, for whom all hypotheses remain open during this stage of investigation. There is also an unconfirmed information about his debts.

Based on initial reports, the body was found by MEP Donato and her daughter Carolina. They worried about the cell phone silence, and found the car by GPS. They would have been the first to arrive at the site of the gruesome discovery, as reported by a witness who said he saw two women screaming next to the car with the door open, and that he recognized the MEP who is well known politician in Palermo.

Friends and family profoundly shattered by this sudden death of they speak of a happy family man with a lot of friends in various clubs. Francesca Donato married the entrepreneur in 1999 and on April 24th they celebrated their silver wedding.

The MEP, originally from Ancona, Marche, had moved to Palermo after her marriage, where she gave birth to Salvatore, 25, and Carolina, 21. Both spouses were involved in politics with the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) party, Donato joined after abandoning Lega which brought her to Brussels MEPs ranks.
Two years ago her husband also attempted a political career by running on the DC list in Palermo for the regional elections, obtaining 846 votes but not enough to be elected. Despite this, the entrepreneur was very active alongside his wife and participated in party meetings. Does this activity have anything to do with his death? Assumptions that some in the party put forward, thinking about the European elections on 8 and 9 June.

Juncker versus Italian corruption

Blog, EU, Politics

Anna van Densky. OPINION. This week Brussels institutional  freedom of speech reached a new low, when the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has been confronted with the demands of withdrawing his comments on corruption in Italy.  During a public  exchange of views, the top EU executive referred to corruption and insufficient efforts as  the key obstacles,  blocking the development of the poorest regions in the south of Apennines peninsula.

“Italians have to take care of the poor regions of Italy. That means more work; less corruption; seriousness,” Juncker said. “We will help them as we always did. But don’t play this game of loading with responsibility the EU. A country is a country, a nation is a nation. Countries first, Europe second”. These words caused the whirlwind of emotions from newly endorsed vice-prime minister Matteo Salvini, numerous political personalities, and even the president of the European Parliament (from Italian origin) Antonio Tajani, – all of them indignant about Juncker referring to the well-established facts. Yes, objectively speaking, there is a huge problem of corruption in Italy,  regarded as plague first of all by the Italians themselves.

According to the official statistics corruption, including political one, remains a major challenge, particularly in southern Italy, affecting Calabria, Campina, and Sicily, where citizens suffer from its consequences at most.  Transparency International   annual reports indicate Italy has been consistently assessed as one of the most corrupt countries in the Eurozone.  While 2017 Corruption Perception Index ranks Italy 54th place out of 180 countries. Scoring on a par with Montenegro, Senegal and South Africa. Yearly the crime of corruption causes Italians a damage of €60 billion .

However an attempt to smother Juncker with ‘politically correct’ banning from public debate the tensions in eurozone is not a unique episode in European political life, it is a chronic syndrome. A year ago then the chair of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem came under the fire for his criticism of abuse of solidarity by heavily indebted countries of the  EU south. The degree of indignation had  amounted to demands of resignation put forward by Spain and Portugal. However the most striking in rude tone was the comment from Italy: “He has missed a perfect opportunity to shut up,” former Italian Socialist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wrote in a Facebook post. “The sooner he goes, the better.”

The entire calamity was caused by the Dutchman remarks to a  German newspaper: “As a social democrat, I think that solidarity is extremely important. But whoever benefits also has duties,” he added. “I can’t spend all my money on booze and women and then ask for your support.” It was the allegory implied to illustrate  the role of corruption and tax evasion in ongoing Greek financial crisis that caused the indignation, not the depressing reality. The Transparency International estimated Greek tax evasion figures between €11 – €16 billion per annum ‘not collectable’, and the corruption also played ‘massive role’ in an outbreak of financial crisis.  Dijsselbloem survived the criticism, so  did his corrupt foes.

One year later the situation of tensions between the north and south of eurozone reflected in Dijsselbloem polemics has not improved in a meaningful way, but instead of fighting grim realities of corruption, the Italian politicians almost unanimously prefer to put some makeup on a face touched by leprosy, while the northern societies reject to accept the trick, requesting accountability. Dijsselbloem then, and Juncker now said what millions of taxpayers in the north of Europe know and think, and silencing them one guarantees the rising pressure of their discontent, because they are the ones to endorse the checks.

Obviously, the expected contemporary modus operandi of the presidents of European institutions, reserving them a role of modern royals – smiling to cameras and shaking hands, plus signing big checks for charity – will not please the EU taxpayers from the northern countries. Being the donors to the southern economies,  where a portion of their transfers is systematically disappearing in the pockets of the corrupt, they are increasingly concerned about the profile of the recipients of their funds.

With the upcoming departure of the UK, the second net contributor to the EU budget, the monitoring of funds transferred from donors to recipients in the bloc will be much more keen. It is possible to smother the heads of the EU institutions by ‘politically correct’ reserving them a public role of mute modern royals, but it will hit back,  undermining the trust in EU institutions, unable to defend the European values.

“Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n’est pas d’éloge flatteur”, Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (“Where there is no freedom of blaming, there can be no genuine praise”).

Bruxelles, 3 june 2018