Freedom of association

Like the social partners, the CSO representatives confirmed that freedom of association and assembly was well protected under the Italian Constitution and Law. It was pointed out that Italy had one of the largest civil societies in Europe, with a high number of CSOs and volunteers that contributed to the economic and social wealth of the country. It was explained that in modern Italian history CSOs had played an indispensable subsidiary role in public intervention.

According to participants, this strong role of civil society was reflected in the legislative framework and notably the 2016 legislative review, which led to a single code for the third sector in 2017. An implementation Decree is still needed to make the implementation of this code effective but there also remains the question of knowing whether or not the provisions concerning co-programming and private-public partnerships will contradict EU regulations, notably on procurement.

Despite this positive assessment of the legislative framework, the CSOs all mentioned an increasingly difficult operative environment. They mentioned an emerging climate of suspicion fed by a campaign led by some politicians to stigmatise the work of CSOs. Some of them have even received threats. This climate of mistrust has led to a reduction of donations by individuals and private foundations, in a context where public funding has been cut. According to the participants, politicians had called for stricter control over CSOs’ financial management, including through fiscal control, on the presumption that CSOs are mismanaged. A CSO mentioned a proposal by one political party to adopt legislation to impose stricter control on CSO funding from abroad, as already exists in some countries where the civic space has been shrinking.

This climate of mistrust is particularly linked with what CSOs described as the criminalization of CSOs working in solidarity with migrants. CSOs shared their concerns with regards to the possible lack of political will of the current Italian government to repeal the two Security Decrees adopted by the previous government. Along with the Code of conduct of CSOs working on search and rescue at sea, CSOs considered that these Decrees significantly restricted their legitimate work, notably by entailing substantial fines and seizure of vessels used for rescue at sea. CSOs referred to the numerous statements by the United Nations calling for them to be revised. They expressed their fear that a future revision would only be minimal, for example leading to a lowering of fines for acts of solidarity with migrants rather than a repeal of these fines.

The Italian authorities indicated that a review of the ‘Security Decrees’ would be considered in 2020 but they did not give specifications on the scope. The Italian authorities acknowledged that there had been a degradation of the CSO climate around migration under the previous government. They indicated that the current government had changed the narrative on the question and had held a good dialogue with the United Nations on these topics. They considered that tensions had eased lately and that the general climate towards civil society was still very positive in the country, as illustrated by the good participation of CSOs in the elaboration of the code on the third sector and the regular constructive exchanges which take place between the authorities and thousands of CSOs.

A CSO gave another illustration of challenges concerning citizens’ right to association and assembly by presenting the situation in the Apulia region, where protests against the Trans Adriatic Pipeline project have led to what has been described as a low key but widespread wave of intimidation against an angry population. The CSO described the filming of civil society meetings by members of the police. Questioned on this point, the Italian authorities responded that there was no policy of filming demonstrations and meetings.