In an effort to conserve Italy’s iconic cultural sites, the country’s right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has announced plans to introduce a law that will impose significant fines on vandals who cause damage to its monuments, buildings, and public artwork.
Earlier this month, Italy’s Ministry of Culture, headed by Gennaro Sangiuliano, proposed new legislation that, once passed by the ruling coalition—which maintains a comfortable parliamentary majority—will level fines ranging from €10,000 to €60,000 against those who are caught vandalizing monuments, buildings, and public artwork, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.
The planned legislation was introduced weeks after far-left, ‘eco-activists’ vandalized the 15th-century Palazzo Vecchio—one of the most famous landmarks in the city of Florence—with spray paint.
The bill was unanimously approved by the Council of Ministers—the principal executive organ of the Italian government comprising the president of the Council, all the ministers, and the undersecretary to the prime minister—on Tuesday, April 11th. Its future adoption by the country’s legislature is almost certain.
Following the bill’s approval by the Council of Ministers, Sangiuliano said: “Attacks on monuments and artistic sites cause economic damage to the community. Whoever carries out these acts must also assume financial responsibility.”
Sanguiliano noted that it cost the government €40,000 to remove the spray paint from the façade of Palazzo Madama, home to the Italian Senate, after members of the Italian ‘eco-activist group’ Ultima Generazione defaced it with neon orange paint.
“To clean it up, the intervention of highly specialized personnel and the use of very costly machines are needed,” Sangiuliano added.
