Romanian community in Italy sets up political party, plans to run for local elections

Romanian migrants in Italy have set up a new political organization, called Europeans for Italy, and hope to run, alone or with other parties, in Italy’s local elections, Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported on Wednesday. The first meeting of the Europeans for Italy movement will take place Saturday in Milan. The organization already has 600 members and has branches in Genoa, Turin and Rome. "We wish to explain to our fellow countrymen that EU citizens have the right to vote in local elections. We'll start with Romanians but we want to extend this initiative to other communities as well, for instance, Moldovans and Polish," said Marian Mocanu, member of the new political movement. "Few Europeans know they can vote in local elections in Italy. We want to encourage them to vote because this is the way to speed up integration," he added. Mediafax