EU Parliament’s tribute to Borsellino and Chinnici. Metsola: “Limitless courage against Mafia”

From the correspondent in Strasbourg – One hundred years ago, on January 19, 1925, Rocco Chinnici was born in the province of Palermo. Fifteen years later, on January 19, 1940, also in the Sicilian capital, Paolo Borsellino was born. Two men linked not only by space-time coordinates, but also by a profession, a mission, and the same dramatic fate. The president of the EU Parliament, Roberta Metsola, opening the plenary in Strasbourg, carefully chose the Italian words to remember the two magistrates who were victims of Cosa Nostra and “their boundless courage in fighting the Mafia.”

The Maltese leader paid tribute in the chamber to two of the protagonists of the anti-Mafia pool that was born in 1983 precisely on Chinnici’s intuition, and which led to the establishment of the Maxiprocess of Palermo against the Sicilian criminal clan. Chinnici was killed shortly thereafter on July 29, 1983, while Borsellino fell in the famous Via D’Amelio massacre nine years later on July 19.

“I want to honour with you their memory and that of all those who gave everything so that we could live in a more just, safer, and freer society,” Metsola said. With their courage and “tenacity in defending the rule of law,” Chinnici and Borsellino “continue to be a source of inspiration even today.” This is not the first time Metsola has quoted or paid tribute to Sicilian magistrates engaged in the fight against the Mafia: she did so in her office re-taking speech last July, and she did so in December 2023, when he went to the museum dedicated to Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in Palermo, also stopping to lay a bouquet on Falcone’s grave.

Still speaking in Italian, the EU Parliament President then remembered her predecessor, David Sassoli, who died prematurely on January 11, 2022. “A European leader, a champion of democracy and above all, a dear friend,” Metsola called him. A leader who “believed deeply in a united Europe, in solidarity, and in a Europe that leaves no one behind.”