Deputy Premier Antonio Tajani said today that a bill seeking to ban the use of foreign words in official Italian documents was not proposed by the government. Instead, it was an individual lawmaker.
Tajani quickly defended the government today over accusations of fascism, and nostalgia for the days of Mussolini, after an FdI MP proposed a bill to ban English in official documents.
“It’s the bill of a parliamentarian, not of the government, and bills have to be passed by the Lower House and the Senate,” Tajani told reporters at the Foreign Press Association in Rome when asked if the bill had a ‘Mussolinian flavour’.
“The defence of the Italian language has nothing to do with Mussolini. Fascism ended in 1945, it’s in the past and it does not interest us and does not concern us.
“Mussolini did more damage than useful stuff.
“I have always defended the Italian language. It’s the mother tongue. Dante Alighieri is the poet of Italian”.
What does the bill involve?
The bill was presented by Fabio Rampelli, an MP for PM Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.
It would institute fines ranging from €5,000 to €100,000 for public employees using foreign instead of Italian words in any public communication. It would also mean fines for firms that employ foreign terms for job titles. Another would be for schools and universities using non-Italian expressions, unless justified by the presence of foreign students.
