The mobile version of the Ukrainian news website strana.today has displayed an election advertisement for the European Parliament in favour of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party. The advert claims that her government pledges to raise pension payments, but the messages appear only on mobile phones registered in Italy.
The election campaign is supposedly sponsored by Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy. However, the name of the party is misrepresented in the advert: “fratelli – Italia” instead of “Fratelli d’Italia”. The ad violates EU law and could be regarded as “blatant interference” in European elections.
Head-post.com emphasizes that the advertisements placed on the news website strana.today are offered by an online news aggregator and not by the resource itself. The Ukrainian website probably may not be aware of hosting this election advert. It may have been purchased from advertisers either by Ukrainian resources or by Meloni’s supporters. In other words, the ad could be sponsored by those who intend to use the Ukrainian resource for their own purposes, knowing that many Ukrainians read the website using their phones.
There are two possible explanations for the origin of the dubious advert, which is not available on the computer version of the website. The first one is an attempt by Meloni’s party to gain votes for the European Parliament at the expense of Ukrainian citizens living in the EU, as the advert is presented on a large Ukrainian website and targets Ukrainian users.
The second one is an attempt by Ukrainian institutions to provide the Italian prime minister’s party with votes in the upcoming June election.
Regardless of who is responsible for placing such an advert, it does have the potential to affect a specific audience, as the advertised pension issue is one of the most important subjects for Ukrainian immigrants. Many Ukrainians have a second, Italian, citizenship and are therefore eligible to vote. However, most of them are not officially employed, which means that when they reach retirement age, only a social pension of less than 500 euros per month will be available to them, experts say.
Italy has previously witnessed scandals around pension reform. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised a historic minimum pension of 1 million liras, but his announcement came in 1999, the year of the transition from the lira to the euro.
Italy’s older generation made their payments in liras and therefore, not realising the risks of a rapid change from the familiar currency to the euro, voted in favour of Berlusconi. As a result, he raised pension payments by only 15 euros (30 thousand lira) after the reform. The scheme worked, and he received a huge number of votes.
Moreover, some 30% of carers eligible for social pensions could also affect the election by convincing their relatives and the people they care for to vote for Meloni’s party, as it promises to implement the pension reform. Ukraine, for its part, is interested in promoting Meloni, as she is one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s main supporters in Italy.
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