ROME — Beginning his third term as prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday pledged forceful measures to solve two of Italy’s problems. These steps would include the use of the military to tackle the long-standing garbage crisis in Naples and new restrictions on illegal immigrants.
“The state has to return to being the state,” Berlusconi said in Naples, whose garbage crisis has undermined confidence in government and tarnished Italy’s image abroad.
Berlusconi, 71, who won elections in April, said he would speed the opening of new garbage dumps and incinerators in the region, using the military to protect the sites from protests.
He also detailed an extensive anti-crime package, responding to widespread fears among the Italian electorate that unregulated immigration had increased crime in Italy. He would make illegal immigration punishable by prison terms. Illegal immigrants would also be expelled more easily and quickly, and it would be possible to detain them for as long as 18 months.
Immigration-rights groups and opposition politicians have criticized the measures.
