MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2015 ANALYSIS

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Focus UK to lay cards on the table over EU referendum

By Jacques Klopp

fter months without a breakthrough, David Cameron will finally give more details tomorrow Aof what reforms he wants for Britain to stay in the European Union before a looming referendum. Nearly three years after promising a vote before the end of 2017, the British prime minister will deliver his shopping list in a letter to EU president Donald Tusk, which is expected to be made public. The letter comes ahead of a crunch European summit in Brussels next Capitale: Gang that preyed on Rome in the dock month and amid hopes that the British referendum on whether to remain an EU member state can be held next year. By Angus Mackinnon and Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta. most eye-opening aspect of the case is killing-the victim was stabbed 34 times- Cameron will warn in a speech tomorrow that if If the prosecution can prove that they that Carminati and Buzzi were ever able resulted in Buzzi receiving a 30-year Britain’s concerns are met with a “deaf ear”, he will have he alleged ringleaders of a mafia did, Carminati, 57, and Buzzi, 59, will face to get anywhere near public money giv- prison sentence. But he served only six to “think again about whether this European Union is gang whose criminal tentacles much tougher sentences than they en their backgrounds. Carminati was giv- behind bars after using his jail time to right for us.” “I rule nothing out,” he will add, according Treached into almost every depart- would if found guilty simply of corrup- en a 10-year prison term in 1998 for pursue his education and earn a reputa- to pre-released extracts. His Europe Minister David ment of Rome’s City Hall went on trial tion. Carminati’s lawyer, Giosue Naso, membership of the Banda della tion as a reformed character. Lidington told journalists last week not to expect too Thursday on a landmark day for Italy’s said the prosecution had no proof of a Magliana, a criminal crew which ruled Much of the prosecution evidence is much new detail in the letter, adding it would be battle against . Massimo mafia conspiracy and that his client Rome’s underworld in the 1970s and based on wiretaps obtained after judges “ambitious” to hope for a deal at December’s summit. Carminati, a convicted gangster with a would rebuff the charges. “He wants to 1980s and, prosecutors say, has reinvent- accepted the prosecutors were dealing “My advice to the prime minister has always been history of involvement with violent far- clarify a load of things and believe me, ed itself in the form of Mafia Capitale. with a genuine mafia structure. In one don’t publish a detailed negotiating position,” he said. right groups, and 45 others are accused he will do it,” Naso told reporters. “In this Carminati is also a former member of recording, Buzzi is heard boasting that He also highlighted that there would have to be four of operating a mafia-style network that whole story the thing that bothers him the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed skimming cash intended to feed and months between any deal being agreed and the vote used , and theft to divert most is his name being linked to ‘mafia’ Revolutionary Nuclei), a far-right group accommodate asylum-seekers from being held. millions of euros destined for public and to drugs. He has absolutely nothing that was involved in the 1980 bombing Africa and the Middle East is more lucra- services into their own pockets. to do with the mafia and drugs disgust of Bologna railway station which left 85 tive than drug dealing. In another, ‘Wants to appease eurosceptics’ Gabriel Siles-Brugge, a politics lecturer at Manchester Carminati and his alleged right-hand him. “And let’s not mention the sup- people dead. He lost his left eye in a Carminati seems to describe himself and University, said Cameron had always been “a bit vague” man Salvatore Buzzi, a convicted mur- posed arms cache that has never been 1981 shoot-out with police. Buzzi, a his associates as the link between the in his demands because he is carrying out “a difficult bal- derer, followed Thursday’s opening ses- found. This is a media trial, purely for the native of the Magliana suburb of Rome underworld and regular society. “There ancing act”. “He wants to appease eurosceptics in his sion in Rome’s criminal court by video consumption of journalists.” which gave birth to the notorious gang, are the living up above and the dead own party while avoiding Brexit (British exit from the link from their prison cells, their pres- was convicted in 1983 of murdering an down below, we are in between, in this EU). But he is of course now being pushed by EU leaders ence in court having been deemed a Middle World accomplice in a cheque-stealing scam middle world where everyone meets,” he to concretise his proposals,” he said. security risk. Subsequent hearings in a For many non-Italian observers, the who confessed to police. The brutal is heard to say. —AFP “That may lead to the former being disappointed trial scheduled to run until next summer because the proposals aren’t intended to push Britain will be held in the Rebibbia prison on towards Brexit but rather to allow him to proclaim a the outskirts of the capital. Prosecutors symbolic victory over Brussels.” John Springford of the say the in Rome went on Centre For European Reform highlighted that Cameron for years, helped to bring the city to the first promised a referendum in 2013, when the anti-EU brink of financial collapse and con- UK Independence Party (UKIP) was surging and his tributed to the current sorry state of its position looked shaky. His Conservatives subsequently infrastructure and many of its public won a House of Commons majority in elections this services. year while UKIP managed to win just one seat. “The strategy was a political one,” he added. “I really don’t ‘Trial by Media’ think Cameron went into that speech with a clear view Among those on trial are local politi- of what reform he even wanted from the EU.” cians, businessmen and officials. All are Four key areas implicated in rigging tenders and other In recent weeks, European partners have put increas- corrupt schemes designed to siphon off ing pressure on Cameron to lay out in more detail what cash destined for everything from kind of reforms he wants. British Foreign Secretary garbage recycling to the reception of Philip Hammond on Sunday told the BBC that some of newly arrived refugees. Hundreds more, the reforms “will require changes to the body of law, to including former mayor Gianni the treaties and secondary legislation,” although the Alemanno, have been investigated in a prime minister has accepted that this is highly unlikely case dubbed “Mafia Capitale” by prose- before the referendum is held. Cameron has long iden- cutors. The scale and nature of the case tified four broad areas where he wants to see reforms make it the most significant anti-corrup- improving competitiveness, greater “fairness” between tion operation in Italy since the “clean euro-zone and non-euro-zone nations, sovereignty hands” campaign of the early 1990s led issues including an exemption from the aspiration of to half the country’s lawmakers being ever-closer union and making it harder for migrants to indicted for taking bribes. Much of the claim benefits. case is expected to be taken up with When Cameron’s de facto deputy and possible suc- debate over whether the accused indi- cessor, finance minister George Osborne, gave a speech viduals can be said to have constituted a in Berlin last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel mafia-type organisation as defined by conceded that Britain had “justified concerns” and legislation designed to combat more tra- stressed she wanted to help prevent a Brexit. Experts ditional crime syndicates such as Sicily’s ROME: Guards stand at the entrance of Rome’s criminal court on the opening day of the Mafia Capitale trial, a case related say there is room for compromise in all areas except migration, where Cameron wants to stop EU migrants, Cosa Nostra, the Neapolitan to the alleged infiltration of City Hall by a mafia network. —AFP including those in work, from claiming certain state benefits for four years after arriving in Britain. “In the UK, this is one of the key issues if not the key issue as far as In Myanmar, a festival of democracy tinged with doubt the public is concerned,” said Stephen Booth, co-direc- tor of think-tank Open Europe. By Andrew RC Marshall torship, and a sense of duty to be part of it. One man dress and cast his vote. “It’s a big and exciting day for This will be particularly tough to achieve agreement who works as an accountant in Singapore said he had our country,” he said. Dampening the celebration was on because of non-discrimination principles in EU legis- s polls closed on Myanmar’s historic election flown home just to vote and would head back the next the cancellation of voting in areas of the country affect- lation. A failure by Cameron, who has said he will step day, diplomats and other observers said the day. In a downtown neighborhood of Myanmar’s north- ed by ethnic violence, which activists estimate has cut down as prime minister by 2020, to achieve what he vote was largely free and fair, with no reports so ern city of Mandalay, Myint Myint, 95, was perched on a some 4 million people out of the electoral process. In wants over benefits would be particularly damaging to A him and his centre-right Conservative party. Hammond far of violence or major fraud, just a solid turnout from plastic chair carried by three men along a dirt path and Mandalay, about 100 people were stopped from voting warned that a Brexit was a real threat if Britons believed a lively and informed electorate. “From the dozens of past a snaking line of voters to the local polling station. after election officials discovered they were outsiders they were being “fobbed off with a set of cosmetic alter- people we have spoken to since 6 am today, everybody “A vote is a vote,” her granddaughter, Phyo Kyaw who had been added to the voter list by a third party ations”. “This is about fundamental change. If we can’t feels they have been able to vote for whoever they explained. “Come on, this is our responsibility.” and then bussed in to vote. “It was an attempt at fraud, do that, then we can’t win a referendum,” he said. —AFP wanted to in security and safety,” said Durudee that’s why we didn’t let them vote,” said Hla Soe of the Sirichanya, an international observer with the ASEAN Fear and anger Union Election Commission. Secretariat. But there was anxiety, too, as many voters recalled There was also indignation about voter lists riddled Factory manager Shein Win and his wife, Khin Myat the election of 1990, when a landslide victory for Suu with errors. Linn Htet Aung, 25, who works for an envi- All articles appearing on these Maw, arrived holding hands to cast their votes in Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party was ronment NGO in Yangon, said he was excited about the pages are the personal opinion of Yangon in Myanmar’s first credible general election in brushed aside by military rulers. Khin May Oo, a 73- potential for change in the country but disappointed the writers. Kuwait Times takes no 25 years. Both now 46, they took part in a 1988 democ- year-old doctor who voted in Yangon, said the election because his name was omitted from the voter list in a responsibility for views expressed racy protest that brought Aung San Suu Kyi to promi- may have brought Myanmar to a turning point, but slum area on the outskirts of the city. “I am angry,” he therein. Kuwait Times invites read- nence. “We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” added nervously of the generals who retain significant said. “All my friends are voting today but I can’t. I want to said Khin Myat Maw as they stood in line. There were power: “I’m not sure whether they will accept the elec- choose the government I like but I can’t.” Aung Than ers to voice their opinions. Please cheers from crowds of well-wishers, who held up ink- tion results.” The military’s commander-in-chief told Htun, an NLD official monitoring a polling station in the send submissions via email to: opin- stained fingers to show they had voted, as Suu Kyi reporters on Sunday the outcome of the vote would be slum, said he had discovered dead people on the voting [email protected] or via snail made a whistle-stop tour of polling booths in her con- respected, even if - as is widely expected - Suu Kyi’s list. But other than that “it seems fine”, he said. Behind mail to PO Box 1301 Safat, Kuwait. stituency near Myanmar’s commercial capital. NLD emerges as the winner. him, small white voting slips sat in piles on a table, with The editor reserves the right to edit Roughly 30 million people were eligible to vote on Indeed, at a military base in the capital, Naypyitaw, rocks and pebbles serving as paperweights. A sudden any submission as necessary. Sunday, many expressing joy at the milestone their Captain Wai Yan Aung said when his duty shift ended gust of wind blew a handful off the table and election country had reached after nearly half a century of dicta- he would change from his uniform into traditional officials had to scurry to collect them. —Reuters