MILAN (AP) — Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of U.S. agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
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Italy tries to save its car industry
The conservative government of Giorgia Meloni in Italy has called on the EU to scrap its green agenda scheme to ban the sale of new combustion engine vehicles by 2035.
Speaking from Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy over the weekend, Rome’s energy minister, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin bluntly stated that “the ban must be changed,” according to Bloomberg.
Pichetto Fratin described Brussels’ plans to outlaw sales of new combustion engine vehicles by 2035 as “absurd” and driven by a centralised command economy “ideological vision” rather than on the realities on the ground in Europe.
Italian Minister of Economic Development Adolfo Urso expressed a similar sentiment, noting the issues being faced by German auto giant Volkswagen, which is considering shutting down factories in Germany for the first time in its history amid rising energy costs, declining demand for electric vehicles and competition from Communist China.
“In an uncertain landscape which is affecting German automotive industry, clarity is needed to not let the European industry collapse,” Urso said. “Europe needs a pragmatic vision, the ideological vision has failed. We need to acknowledge that.”
Meanwhile, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who represents the populist wing of Prime Minister Meloni’s coalition government, said that his League party plans to introduce legislation in the parliament in Rome to legally commit the government to repeal the EU directive.
