French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who met in Paris, expressed concern that instability in the North African country was providing fertile soil for IS to flourish, with Renzi warning that Libya risked becoming “the next emergency”.
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“We’re focusing our attention on the Vienna process for Syria,”, Renzi said, referring to global talks to try to find a political solution for Syria’s copnflict. “They destroy statues, we love art. They destroy books, we are the country of libraries”. “We want to forcefully ask Europe to respect a pact of humanity which is worth more than the stability pact”, he added.
The additional funds for culture will be divided equally among investment in projects in large cities and their outlying areas and among incentives for young people and for tax breaks for those who wish to set up cultural associations.
Renzi did not commit Italy to providing any new military support to combat IS in Syria, where French military jets have been carrying out strikes on the IS targets following the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris.
Aware of the potential backlash, Renzi warned the corporate tax cut could still be launched in 2016, as planned, if Brussels allowed Italy to raise its deficit from 2.2 percent to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, the FT reports.
Mr Renzi also took a swipe at world leaders for rejecting his proposal at a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in September 2014 to exclude security spending from European Union budget rules.
As part of the increased security measures, Italian police raided the Baobab migrant center in Rome on Tuesday where 23 undocumented immigrants from North Africa, Eritrea, and Ethiophia were detained, according to La Stampa.
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“This series of meetings is needed to draw all the lessons from what happened in Paris, of this frightful tragedy, and to make advances (to fight terrorism)”, he told reporters.
