Activist, Italians ready to legalise cannabis and euthanasia – EURACTIV

Italians want to legalise cannabis and euthanasia despite a disappointing Constitutional court verdict not to admit two referenda on the topics and politicians apparent disinterest, according to activist Marco Cappato in an interview with EURACTIV.

Marco Cappato is an Italian politician and activist, ex-MEP with the ALDE political group from 1999 to 2009. He can be considered the Italian frontline leader in the struggle to legalise euthanasia and cannabis.

How did we arrive at the proposals of the two referenda on euthanasia and cannabis in Italy, and why are they two important topics for EU politics?

The Italian Constitution provides citizens with two instruments of participatory democracy: the first and more powerful one is calling a referendum to abolish a law. To be held, a referendum needs 500,000 signatures or the approval of five Regional Councils.

The second tool is the popular ballot initiative, which consists of a proposal to the parliament to discuss a specific law by gathering 50,000 signatures.

We tabled a popular ballot initiative eight years ago on legalising euthanasia and another one on decriminalisation of cannabis five years ago, with the Associazione Luca Coscioni. But the parliament never discussed the two proposals.

Therefore, to overcome this deadlock, we decided to gather signatures for referenda on cannabis and euthanasia, which the Constitutional Court assessed as not admittable last week.

Generally speaking, I think it would have been significant for EU politics to have a country such as Italy face these two issues with referenda. It would have been the first time in history.

I believe we are going toward the legalisation of euthanasia and cannabis worldwide anyway. And this is because our life dramatically changed in the last decades.

For euthanasia: our lives are longer and longer because of the advance in technology of medical treatments. As a consequence, the process of dying is becoming longer and longer. And if the process of dying will last longer, people have to be entitled to freely decide how they want to end their lives.

For cannabis: nowadays, we are aware that to create a drugs free world, as stated by the UN in a 1998 campaign, is an illusion. But at least, there is the possibility to decriminalise cannabis.

Those two goals will be achieved sooner or later. The problem is: when? It could take 10 or 15 years. In the meantime, people will continue to experience violence or imprisonment regarding cannabis or suffer when we talk about euthanasia. With the referenda, we aimed to accelerate this process.

Is there something that can be done at the EU level?

With the EUMANS association, a pan-European movement for civic participation, we will discuss how to deal with the two issues at the EU level on the occasion of our next congress in Warsaw next 11-12 March.

We indeed need the EU to solve this impasse: it is well-known that EU institutions do not have direct competences to legalise euthanasia or drugs. However, on end-of-life decisions, the EU could create a European living will (following the example of the EU Covid Certificate) as a legal instrument where people can state their will if they lose their abilities.

For instance, if an Italian citizen has their European living will pass, they can use it also in other EU countries if they temporarily move abroad for professional or other reasons.

Doctors of other countries can work according to the European living will pass if something severe happens to a person.

On drugs, you cannot legalise cannabis at the EU level. Nevertheless, there is a regulation on the cooperation of policies in criminal matters explicitly designed around the prohibition of drugs. The idea is to prepare a European Initiative Campaign, gathering one million signatures across the EU, asking to abolish the EU repression mechanism on drugs.

In general, I feel citizens are always missing in the political debates. Governments are at the centre of the landscape, but very few are left to civil society, NGOs or common citizens, cooperating at the EU level to reach common goals.

Citizens across Europe can cooperate on common goals regardless of what their governments are doing. What we would like to do with this congress in Warsaw is to reinforce the idea of the need for a civic movement that goes beyond electoral politics, which is fundamentally national business. Of course, there are EU elections, but national political dynamics still dominate them.

The Italian Constitutional Court declared that the two referenda on legalising cannabis and euthanasia, for which you gathered millions of signatures, cannot be held. What is your opinion on such a decision?

The decision was a political one. The Italian Constitution clearly states that the three issues on which a referendum cannot be held are fiscal and budgetary laws, amnesty laws, and ratification of international treaties. These are obvious and objective criteria.

Neither euthanasia nor cannabis is included in the subjects above mentioned. However, in the last decades, the court created more criteria that are very subjective, such as the clarity of the referendum the not-manipulation of the latter.

Those criteria are open to interpretation. This is transforming the admissibility judgement on a referendum into a political choice. The more subjective the way of deciding, the more the verdict is political.

So, of course, we defended with our lawyers the admissibility of the two referenda.

The court will publish their technical motivation soon. However, I believe that behind technical motivations, there are political stances.

The president of the Constitutional Court, Giuliano Amato, said that now the parliament should discuss these two referenda. However, as MPs did not do in the past, there are still no conditions to hold appropriate discussions on these two issues. Can you explain why it is so hard to consider new laws on cannabis and euthanasia in Italy?

This is a problem of democracy. The public opinion is ready in Italy to legalise euthanasia and decriminalise cannabis: a poll published on 17 February showed that more than 70% of people favour legalising euthanasia under certain conditions.

But the political system is stuck, very often by minority branches within parties. Do not also forget the influence of the Vatican City in these two issues. This incapability of deciding on cannabis and euthanasia represents a problem of Italian democracy, which is not in good condition.

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Activist, Italians ready to legalise cannabis and euthanasia - EURACTIV