Milan airport to be named after Silvio Berlusconi

The airport of Milan will be named after the controversial former Italian head of government Silvio Berlusconi, despite protests from the city’s centre-left mayor.

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who also holds the transport portfolio and leads the far-right League party, announced the name change on Friday, one year after the businessman’s death.

“The final decision belongs to the Minister of Transport and I am willing to sign it, with pride and emotion, in memory of my friend Silvio, a great businessman, a great Milanese and a great Italian.” said Salvini.

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said on Tuesday that the decision to change the name of Malpensa airport, one of Italy’s largest, should not have been taken by Salvini alone.

Billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, who died in June last year aged 86, had close ties to Milan, where he made his fortune and was chairman of AC Milan football team for 31 years, winning the Champions League five times during his tenure.

He was a very controversial politician. Many Italians saw him as a charming, self-made man, while others found him embarrassing, especially because of his sexual scandals and problems with the law.

The Democratic Party (PD, left), the main opposition party, proposed several alternative names for the airport, arguing that “Berlusconi’s biography does not represent those who, like us, fight the values ​​of that period””.

A left-wing trade union, the CGIL, has published an online petition on change.org to name the airport after Carla Fracci (1936-2021), an Italian ballet legend originally from Milan.

The CGIL, which calls for “avoid making decisions that cause deep divisions”promotes the name of that dancer because “He transmitted elegance, style and courage throughout the world.”