MEPs lambast 'opaque' EU Commission U-turn on foreign lecturers' case against Italy

 ROME – As many as 12 Irish, Croatian, French and German MEPs have issued a strong statement in support of foreign lecturers working for universities in Italy after what the Irish MEP Cynthia Ni Mhurchu denounced as an “opaque” European Commission U-turn in a discrimination case against the recalcitrant Italian government, the ALLSI foreign lecturers’ union said.

 The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled six times that non-Italian lecturers, known as lettori, teaching foreign languages in Italian universities are suffering illegitimate discrimination based on nationality, regarding duration of contract, access to jobs and equal and fair pay. However, in July, the Commission decided that the Italian government had paid all due compensation and that the case did not need to go further.

 On Oct. 20, Ms Ní Mhurchú MEP tabled a follow up to her question of March 31 to the European Commission, supported by fellow Irish MEPs, Michael McNamara, Billy Kelleher, Barry Andrews, Ciaran Mullooly, Barry Cowen, Luke Ming Flanagan and Kathleen Funchion as well as Croatian MEPs Tomislav Sokol and Davor Ivo Stier, French MEP Malika Sorel and German MEP Marion Walsmann.  

 The follow up said “the Commission in its reply of June 10 to question E-001324/2025 stated that Case C-519/23 ‘is currently pending at the Court of Justice’, will the Commission explain what subsequent factors caused it to close the case on July 17 2025?”  

 In a statement on Oct. 20, Ms Ní Mhurchú said that “The treatment of foreign lecturers by Italian universities undermines the fundamental principle of free movement within the EU.” She added that she was “incredibly disappointed with the Commission's opaque handling of this case. They have repeatedly provided incomplete and non-committal responses to parliamentary questions. To respond to my office that the case is 'pending at the Court of Justice' and a month later to drop that case without explanation and without giving all parties the chance to be heard, raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability in the Commission's actions.”

 Professor Avv. Lorenzo Picotti, of the Verona Bar, who successfully pled two of the six lecturers’ cases in the ECJ said, “Decree law 688/2023 limited the application of the seniority progression parameter approved by the Court of Justice, which was to be equivalent to that of national staff, to only the first years of employment, i.e. only up to 1994. Furthermore, the decree provided only for the option, and not the obligation, for universities to reconstruct the careers of lecturers, so that only some of them did so, because if they had done so, they would have had to add their own resources to the ministerial co-financing.”

 The chairman of the Association of Foreign Lecturers (ALLSI), David Petrie, reacted to the news by thanking the MEPs for “their support and concern.” He said that regarding the dismissal of the case that there are “two issues. Firstly, decree law 688 retrospectively alters the binding rulings of the ECJ to the detriment of the lettori. Secondly, the Commission's assertion that the lettori have actually been paid compensation is easily refuted by “following the money”; examining tax returns, pay and pension slips . We supplied to the Commission, with the assistance of our lawyers, on July 2, 2025, such information concerning scores of lettori in 14 Italian universities, thereby rebutting the assertion that 'grievances raised in the application to the Court in case C-519/23 had been resolved’.”

 Prof. Petrie further added that “the Commission should refer itself to an independent public body to investigate why, after six ECJ rulings over a period of 36 years it has been unable or unwilling to guarantee the fundamental Treaty rights of EU citizens faced with the dogged intransigence of the Italian university authorities bankrolled by their paymasters in the Italian Republic.” 

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