Elected, but not yet free. With a haul of 176,434 votes Ilaria Salis became a member of the European Parliament. The activist, on trial in Hungary on charges of attacking two neo-Nazi militants in Budapest, won the seat thanks to his candidacy in the European elections with the Green-Left Alliance (AVS). However, she is not yet free and she has not even returned to Italy. She is in Budapest, under house arrest (after 15 months in prison) with an electronic bracelet. The issue now is precisely this: why haven’t the arrests been revoked yet? Can the Meloni government do something?
All the elected MEPs (and those waiting for Vannacci, Salis and Lucano)
The law provides that members of the European Parliament can benefit from immunity on national territory and in every other member state, and then enjoy exemption from any detention order and any judicial proceedings. Therefore, the trial and precautionary measures are suspended for Salis. These rules do not come into force with the election, but with the official proclamation.
Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani explains the steps to RTL: “You need to know the law before speaking. I can’t communicate anything before the election is announced. None of us are elected, we need communication from the Court of Appeal , which is not there yet. Then the European Parliament must take note of it. The headlines are not enough. I cannot communicate anything before the communication. When it happens, it will be communicated to the competent Hungarian authority which will then make its decisions to the European Parliament to intervene”.
The new EU legislature will begin on 16 July, the date of the first plenary session of Parliament. The proclamation will therefore be a few days before. To see Ilaria Salis free, we must therefore wait longer.
