Cassola to tackle blocking of Italian TV signals

Newly elected Italian parliamentarian Arnold Cassola says he intends tackling the scrambling of Italian TV transmissions by private European service providers as soon as he is sworn in.

In an interview with The Times, the first since he was elected to Montecitorio's Lower House, he says the issue of transmissions being scrambled during major sporting events is not only a Maltese problem.

The issue has been highly controversial here. It has been raised in Parliament and subscribers to Melita Cable, in a barrage of letters to this news-paper, have vented frustration that despite paying for packages which include channels such as RAI, important football matches and Formula One races have been blocked from these channels when shown on Melita's sports channels.

Prof. Cassola says the problem is not only Malta's. His election campaign took him to 15 European countries, giving him the opportunity to come face to face with the bread and butter issues of a number of emigrant Italian communities. One of them is the scrambling of TV signals from Italy by service providers in other countries holding programme rights.

"In Belgium, a cable provider, Coditel sells a TV package which includes RAI. At one stage the company decided that it would be stopping not only some football matches and Formula One races but all the RAI feed.

"I know something similar happens here but I'll have to check the details. I'll take it up in Italy and at European level."

He said that RAI, in particular, was essential for many Italian expatriates as a means to keep connected to Italy, adding that besides everything this was an issue of consumer rights.

"You wouldn't accept that a shop owner takes back a few biscuits from a packet you had just bought from him, would you?"

Prof. Cassola was a candidate of the Italian Greens, which forms part of Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition. Twelve representatives to the 630-seat Lower House and six to the 315-seat Senate from four new districts around the world were elected from the expatriate list.

Keeping ties with Maltese emigrants through electoral participation would not be a bad idea for Malta either, Prof. Cassola argued.

"My personal opinion, not necessarily that of Alternattiva Demokratika, is that anyone who is a Maltese citizen should have the right to vote. If we don't want to lose contact with second-generation emigrant communities we have to find a way to connect, even by giving them the right to vote.

"These people can give their experience and knowledge to Malta. Take the Maltese rugby team, for example. Most players have immigrant origins, Welsh, Australian... So when they contribute to Malta we clap and cheer but then take a different stand when it comes to the vote."