ROME -- Head of the Association for Foreign Lecturers in Italy, Professor David Petrie, urged UK Minister for Brexit Mr. David Davis MP, Secretary of State for the European Union, to intervene in the long-standing discrimination faced by non-British lecturers (‘lettori’) in Italian universities.

 In a letter to Mr. Davis, Prof. Petrie said, “We were in the House of Commons on Jan. 31 2017 to brief a number of our constituency MPs and present a petition to Sir Alan Duncan MP. You will see from the petition that the so-called Gelmini law is being used to extinguish the rights of UK lecturers working in Italian universities.”

 The letter went on, “Not only is Italy not guaranteeing the rights of UK citizens in Italy, it is subtracting the rights of UK citizens – cutting their salaries and denying them the right to judicial review.”

 “Both Prime Minister, Mrs. May, and the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Boris Johnson MP, have raised this matter with their Italian counterparts. David Lidington MP has described Italy’s behaviour as both ‘immoral and illegal.’ Sir Alan Duncan MP in reply to a question put by Andrew Bridgen MP said that the discrimination was ‘unacceptable.’”

 The letter then quoted an article from The Times by Mr. Alberto Costa MP: “…We did not vote to take away the rights of EU citizens like my parents who live in this country. It is disgraceful that, as it stands today, we are not honouring their rights.”

 In conclusion of the letter, Petrie wrote, “This leads to another question; Should the UK government enter into a reciprocal agreement on guaranteeing the rights of Italian citizens currently working in the UK while those rights are denied to UK citizens in Italy? Italy has an appalling record of discrimination against UK lecturers working it its universities….

We must trust that the government will not enter into a reciprocal agreement with Italy until the rights of UK lecturers are respected in both theory and in practice.”

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