(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 13 - Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Wednesday said Italy knows how to take care of itself after Elon Musk the previous day wrote on his platform X that Rome judges who nixed the detention of a second batch of migrants subjected to Italy's controversial policy of taking migrants to be processed in Albania needed to go.
"Italy is a great democratic country and I must reiterate that it knows how to take care of itself, in the respect of its Constitution", the Italian president said, quoting a statement he made on October 7, 2022, responding to an interview given by former French European Affairs minister Laurence Boone to Rome daily Repubblica in which she had expressed concern for the new cabinet to be led by Premier Giorgia Meloni.
Mattarella went on to say that "anyone, particularly if, as announced," they are "about to undertake an important government role in a friendly and allied country, must respect sovereignty and cannot claim the role of imparting provisions".
The Tesla, X and SpaceX owner Musk, who was appointed by US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday to head a newly created government efficiency agency, wrote via X "these judges need to go," on a user's post on the news of the suspension of the validation of the detention of seven migrants decided by the immigration section of the court of Rome.
The court referred the case to the European Court of Justice.
(ANSA).