Operator News

Italy – A year after its closure protesters demand Campione’s reopening

By Phil - 1 August 2019

With the Casino di Campione now being closed for a whole year, former members of staff and local politicians took to the streets of the tiny Italian enclave to form a funeral procession to mark the anniversary.

Carrying slogans such as ‘Give us back our dignity,’ ‘you left an entire country behind’ and ‘give us back our jobs,’ they demanded political intervention to reopen the casino.

After various problems, including the strength of the franc on the euro, the struggling casino closed its doors on July 27 2018. Since then there have been constant protests and silent marches through the streets of a country that without its main source of livelihood risks collapse, but they have all been in vain.

CGIL union leader Paolo Bortoluzzi said: “Campione has always been a mirror to Italy with many poorly managed resources. Today being a resident of Campione hurts. It hurts because a brutal force has indiscriminately broken the resolve of honest citizens. It hurts because those citizens are left with the weight of the moral judgement of the community and nothing else.”

“Campione has been failed, not just the casino and this is certainly not because of those who went to work there,” he added. “Campione d’Italia remains the only Italian enclave and has no chance of real recovery without the reopening of the casino. We need some serious intervention from our political forces as the lives of hundreds of Italian families are at risk. Given the peculiarity of the territory and the strong professional specialisation of its inhabitants, reopening the casino with a serious controlled and controllable company remains the only real answer that can produce profits for Campione and for Italy. It is the duty of the Italian Government to give Campione its dignity back.”

The decision to judge the casino’s restructuring agreement as ineffective, taken by the commissioner extraordinary liquidation of the Municipality, brought an end to an era of prosperity for the Italian enclave.

One protestor added: “To date no representative of the government has ever proved to be by our side. Campione d’Italia cannot be forgotten.”

Alessandra Ghirotti, Vincenzo Falanga and Nunzio Praticò, the respective secretaries of the CGIL, UIL and CISL Civil Service, added: “We expected a better attitude from the commissioner. We are disappointed as the commissioner said no to everything. The story of Campione d’Italia must be dealt with in a pragmatic and responsible way. The survival of an entire country is at stake.

“The reality of Campione was born at the beginning of the century by political will, with the public monopoly on gambling, and its economy developing exclusively on that,” they added. “The only hope to give Campione d’Italia a future is to reopen the casino, provide it with a sustainable workforce and restart the economy related to it. The union has done its part, proposing solutions and asking for political responsibility. The Campione crisis will only be resolved with an economic, political and administrative project based on the Extraordinary Commissioner’s report. Each level of government can and must play a role, with different prerogatives and responsibilities. One fact is certain; the time for words is over.”

Alessio Butti, Deputy of national-conservative party Fratelli d’Italia, added: “I express all my solidarity in a year of total disinterest on the part of the national government. Campione has lost hope in the judiciary and in the government itself, but it has not lost its dignity.”