The southern Italian region of Calabria and the island of Sicily are jointly defying the 2-G rule for all means of transport decreed by the government in Rome on January 10.
First of all, the Sicilian regional president Nello Musumeci decreed on Tuesday afternoon that people with a negative test could also use the ferries across the Messina Strait to the mainland.
In the evening, the Calabrian regional president Roberto Occhiuto signed a similar decree in Catanzaro, according to which not only vaccinated and recovered people, but also those who tested negative are allowed on the ferries from Villa San Giovanni to Messina in Sicily.
Matthias Rub
Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.
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On January 10th, a virtual lockdown for all unvaccinated people came into force throughout Italy.
Since then, the “Super Green Pass” has been mandatory for all public transport on land, water and in the air, including local transport.
This is what the 2-G rule says in Italy: Only vaccinated and recovered people have access, a negative corona test is not enough.
A case caused a national sensation
The case of Fabio Messina from Palermo initially caused a national stir. After a business trip to Liguria, the 43-year-old entrepreneur was unable to return to his family in Sicily. On January 11, when he tried to board the ferry to Sicily in his car at the port of Villa San Giovanni on the toe of the mainland, his journey suddenly came to an end. Because while he could drive his car wherever he wanted on the mainland without hindrance, he was barred from using the ferry across the Strait of Messina. Messina spent the first nights in his car, with an air mattress, because you can only get into accommodation facilities with a “Super Green Pass”. Then he was hosted by local residents at the port of Villa San Giovanni.
Messina co-founded the anti-mafia group Addiopizzo in Palermo and is not a supporter of No Vax, the informal movement of vaccine skeptics and vaccine refusers. His ten-year-old son received all ten vaccinations that are compulsory for kindergarten and school children in Italy, Messina reported to Italian media. However, he and his wife did not consider the vaccination against the corona virus to be necessary or right: "We are healthy, we are doing well and we are not potential risk patients." Messina commented that he could not translate to Sicily with the words: "I can drive to Oslo, but not take the ferry back to Sicily." Through a lawyer, Messina obtained an exemption from the administrative court in Reggio di Calabria,so that he was finally able to translate on Friday.
At the port of Messina, Cateno De Luca, the city's mayor, had been sleeping in a tent on the pier since the weekend. He spoke of a "symbolic blockade" of the Strait of Messina in protest against the 2-G rule in ferry traffic. De Luca also went on a hunger strike on Tuesday because the government in Rome is holding all of Sicily hostage.
Similar protests as in Calabria and Sicily had previously taken place in Venice, where the water buses called vaporetto are also only accessible to vaccinated and recovered people.
On Elba and on small islands off the coast, those who have not been vaccinated feel their constitutional right to freedom of movement has been robbed.
Usually, the government in Rome files a complaint with the competent administrative court when regional or local authorities issue their own decrees overturning orders of national validity.