BATTAGLIA IN COMUNE SUL CONTRIBUTO D'ACCESSO A VENEZIA | 13/09/2023

A3 NEWS Venice 09/13/2023 - VENICE - The Municipality has approved the entrance fee to Venice, but the Council meeting took place in a heated atmosphere in which opposing visions of the city clashed. || The close face-to-face meeting between Gianfranco Bettin and Luigi Brugnaro represents the moment of greatest tension and will remain the symbol of the Venice City Council, which for the first time in Italy has established that entry to a city will require payment. Officially, the discussion is on the entrance fee to be charged for about thirty days a year to visit Venice, but in reality, what is being played out at Ca' Farsetti in an interminable and highly attended council meeting, interrupted several times, is a broader clash between profoundly different visions of the city and what its future should be. Council President Ermelinda Damiano has to interrupt the meeting more than once. Although diverse in form and content, the protests often share a common thread: a request for a more balanced discussion and more participatory interventions, whether by some citizens who asked to speak—as indeed happened—or by the mere four minutes granted to councilors. With 24 votes in favor from the center-right majority and 12 against from the opposition, the access fee was approved as expected. For 20 or 30 days next year, day tourists arriving from outside the Veneto region will have to pay 5 euros. But the issue has almost faded into the background. The real event everyone is looking forward to, and which has been the focus of much of the debate in the chamber, is the UNESCO commission, which in a few hours will begin discussing the "Venice dossier" to decide whether or not to include the city on the list of sites in danger. Not because of war or natural disasters, but because of mass tourism. (Report by Filippo Fois) - Follow Antenna Tre on digital terrestrial too! Visit the website www.antennatre.it