Premier Giorgia Meloni's statement on Wednesday that the Manifesto of Ventotene did not represent the Europe she envisions during a Lower House debate ahead of this week's EU Council sparked a protest by opposition members that led Speaker Lorenzo Fontana to temporarily interrupt the session.
"I don't know if this is your Europe, but it's certainly not mine", Meloni said of the 1941 manifesto which was circulated within the Italian Resistance and soon became the programme of the European Federalist Movement.
"I am not very clear on your idea of Europe", the premier went on to say, mentioning a pro-EU demonstration held in Rome Saturday at the initiative of journalist Michele Serra, and saying that many participants as well as members of the opposition in the House had mentioned the Manifesto: "I hope they haven't read it, because the alternative would be scary", she said.
The small island of Ventotene off the coast of Lazio housed a Fascist prison during World War II, and two of the founding fathers of the European Union were held there by the Mussolini dictatorship.
This was where Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi came up with the Ventotene Manifesto.
The Manifesto encouraged a federation of European states in a bid to prevent future wars.
Members of the centre-left opposition protested, screaming and standing up, forcing Fontana to interrupt the session for a second time.
"The Manifesto of Ventotene is a hymn to federal Europe against nationalisms that produced two wars and using it in this way is unacceptable", said Democratic Left MP Federico Fornaro.
Protesters also included Marco Grimaldi of the Green-Left Alliance (AVS) and Alfonso Colucci (Five-Star Movement, M5S) who said: "Shame, there is no space for Fascism anymore".
Announcing that the House would resume its session in the afternoon, Speaker Fontana urged lawmakers to "maintain appropriate tones" while addressing the House, also to "honour the memory of those who put their lives on the line to ensure the principle of freedom of expression for everybody".
Later on Wednesday, Meloni posted her address to the House in which she spoke about the Manifesto written by Spinelli and Rossi to her social media channels writing: "You judge".
Meloni's three-minute-long speech on the Manifesto quoted experts from the text, which was written during the Fascist regime, saying that "the European revolution in order to respond to our needs must be Socialist" and "in revolutionary eras in which institutions don't need to be administered but created, the democratic practice sensationally fails", among others.
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