Brussels expresses solidarity after attack on Ranucci; Metsola: ‘We will never take a step back’

Brussels – The shocking news of the attack on investigative journalist and Report anchor Sigfrido Ranucci has reverberated through the European Parliament. The delegations of the Democratic Party and the 5 Star Movement call for an urgent debate in the Chamber next week in Strasbourg. The president, Roberta Metsola, expresses solidarity for the “terrible attack” and warns, “Freedom of the press is at the heart of democracy. Europe will never take a step backwards.” 

Last night, at around 10 p.m., two explosions destroyed Ranucci’s and his daughter’s cars in front of the journalist’s home in Campo Ascolano, in Pomezia, on the outskirts of Rome. Fortunately, no one was injured: the journalist and his daughter were both at home, and no one was around when the explosion occurred. According to initial reconstructions, a rudimentary device with a kilogram of explosive was placed between Ranucci’s car and the gate of the house. 

This morning, Ranucci, after filing a complaint, said: “Last night’s incident marked a worrying escalation, as it happened right in front of my home, where bullets had been found last year.” The journalist and face of the investigative program, Report, recalled that “there is an endless list of threats, of various kinds, that I have received and of which I have always informed the judicial authorities.”

Solidarity with Italian journalist @SigfridoRanucci.

Relieved that he and his daughter were unharmed after the terrible attack.

Freedom of the press is at the heart of democracy.

Europe will never take a step backwards. pic.twitter.com/QWpd8WoNR7

– Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) October 17, 2025

 The institutions of the Republic and the leading press associations immediately rallied around Ranucci. In a note, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed “the strongest condemnation for the serious act of intimidation he was subject to.” So did the head of state, Sergio Mattarella. The president of the Ordine dei Giornalisti, Carlo Bartolo, spoke of “a grave act, the result of a climate that must change,” and issued an appeal: “We need to disarm words, and that must start from the top — with representatives of the institutions.”

For Nicola Zingaretti, head of the PD delegation in the European Parliament, this is a “wake-up call.” The PD MEPs have demanded that the issue “be immediately put on the agenda” of the plenary session to be held in Strasbourg from October 20 to 23. The 5 Star Movement did the same, proposing to their group – The Left – to present an urgent request to change the agenda of the session “so that the attack on Sigfrido Ranucci and its consequences are discussed openly and transparently.” Freedom of the press is “under attack throughout Europe,” said M5S MEP Gaetano Pedullà. 

The League’s delegation leader, Paolo Borchia, also called the attack “bad news with a capital B.” Ignazio Marino, an AVS MEP, called it “an alarming incident,” and stressed that this “will inevitably set back Italy’s already very low position in terms of press freedom.”

Condemnations also come from the European Commission, where the spokesman Markus Lammert made it clear that “in the EU, there is no place for intimidation of journalists,” who, he emphasized, “should be able to work freely everywhere and do their important work safely and free from threats.” Because, he recalled, “this is the heart of press freedom.” 

The European Union has had a new legislation, the Media Freedom Act, fully in force since August 8, 2025. The regulation, among other things, provides greater protection for information professionals. The President of the European Parliament, on the day the new rules came into force, had declared: “In Europe and throughout the world, journalists must be protected and free to do their work without fear, threat, or interference.” Ranucci’s episode is a plunge into the past, also for the Maltese Metsola: next week, the European Parliament will present the Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize, an annual award for investigative journalism instituted after an explosive device that blew up the car of the Maltese journalist in 2017.