Dozens of Italian municipalities decided this Thursday to turn off the spotlights that illuminate the most symbolic monuments, including the Capitol in Rome and the Old Palace in Florence, to protest against the explosion in the price of electricity.
At the initiative of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) and the support of the mayors, numerous municipalities decided to symbolically cut off electricity for one hour starting at 8:00 p.m. local time.
The Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieridecided to join due “to the increase in electricity bills, which puts families and institutions, both small and large municipalities, in difficulty, especially in a period that is already difficult due to the pandemic,” he explained in a statement from press.
The president of the ANCI, Antonio Decaro, calculates that the additional cost implied by the price increase is “at least 550 million euros (about 629 million dollars) for local entities, on an annual expenditure on electricity of between 1,600 and 1,800 million euros (from 1,800 to 2,000 million dollars).”
“The government’s response to our requests has not been sufficient,” Decaro lamented.
At the end of January, the Government announced aid of 5.5 billion euros (about 6.2 billion dollars) to lower electricity and gas bills for homes and businesses.
The first Minister, mario draghirecognized on Wednesday, during a trip to Genoa (northwest), “the difficulties that families and companies are going through due to the increase in the price of electricity”, and announced that the “Government is preparing a large-scale intervention for coming days” on that problem.
The mayors had threatened the government several days ago with taking this symbolic initiative. “We will turn off some monuments, a symbolic gesture to send a message to the government,” he had explained. Beppe Sala, Mayor of Milanwhere the town hall and the Sforza Castle will remain in the shadow.
“Milan uses a lot of LEDs, we can only dim the lighting,” he explained.
According to a study of S&PGlobalquoted by the Turin daily La Stampa, the increase in the price of electricity implies an additional cost of at least 35 billion euros ($40 billion) for Italy.