NextFin News - The European Parliament has effectively overruled one of the most contentious legal reforms of the Meloni administration, passing a sweeping anti-corruption directive that forces Italy to reinstate the crime of abuse of office. In a decisive 581-to-21 vote on Thursday, lawmakers in Brussels mandated that all EU member states criminalize the "misuse of functions" by public officials, a legal category that Italy’s governing coalition formally abolished just two years ago under the so-called Nordio Law.
The directive, which was provisionally agreed upon in late 2025, aims to harmonize the definition of corruption across the bloc to prevent "safe havens" for white-collar crime. Beyond abuse of office, the new framework requires member states to establish criminal penalties for embezzlement, obstruction of justice, and illicit enrichment. For Rome, the timing is particularly awkward. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio had championed the repeal of the crime in 2024, arguing that the "fear of the signature"—the paralysis of local administrators terrified of judicial scrutiny—was stifling Italian bureaucracy and economic growth.
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle, the Dutch MEP who served as the rapporteur for the directive, was blunt about the implications for Italy during a press conference in Brussels. She confirmed that while Italy had recently "de-criminalized" the act, it must now "de-abolish" it to comply with the new EU standards. The directive specifically targets the most serious forms of administrative misconduct, leaving little room for the Italian government to maintain its current legal vacuum. Member states have 24 months to transpose the rules into national law, setting a ticking clock for a legislative U-turn in Rome.
The repeal of the crime in 2024 was greeted with "toasts" by mayors across the political spectrum, who had long complained that the vague nature of the law led to thousands of investigations but vanishingly few convictions. Data from the Italian Ministry of Justice showed that in 2021, out of 4,745 proceedings for abuse of office, only 18 resulted in a final conviction. Critics of the repeal, however, including former anti-mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho, warned that removing the statute stripped citizens of protection against rigged tenders and nepotism, particularly in regions where organized crime heavily infiltrates local government.
Brussels has now sided with the critics, viewing the Italian move as a regression in the rule of law. The new directive does more than just reinstate a single crime; it requires the establishment of independent anti-corruption bodies and the publication of annual, comparable data on corruption cases. By setting minimum standards for maximum penalties, the EU is attempting to ensure that a corrupt official in Milan faces similar legal risks to one in Munich or Madrid. This harmonization is designed to facilitate cross-border investigations by OLAF and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which have often been hampered by differing national definitions of what constitutes a bribe or a conflict of interest.
The political fallout for U.S. President Trump’s allies in Europe, including the Italian right, is significant. The mandate from Brussels reinforces the "Brussels Effect," where EU regulatory standards dictate domestic policy even when those policies are central to a government's populist or reformist identity. While the Italian government may attempt to draft a more narrowly defined version of the crime to satisfy both Brussels and its own domestic base of mayors, the era of total immunity for administrative "errors" appears to be coming to an abrupt end. The legal tug-of-war now shifts from the floor of the European Parliament back to the Italian Chamber of Deputies, where the government must decide how to swallow a bitter legislative pill.
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