The decision was made by Italy’s top police and intelligence officials in a meeting on Tuesday, called by Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese in response to Monday night’s deadly shooting in Vienna.
The purpose of the meeting was to assess the current situation in Europe and the state of security in Italy, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
Austria on Tuesday began three days of mourning after a gunman, said by authorities to be a supporter of the Islamic State group, went on a rampage across Vienna, killing four people and injuring 17 others.
The attack was condemned by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who expressed support for “the Austrian people, the relatives of the victims and the injured”.
“There is no space for hatred and violence in our common European home,” Conte wrote on Twitter.
Ferma condanna dell’attentato che questa sera ha colpito la città di #Vienna. Non c’è spazio per l’odio e la violenza nella nostra casa comune europea. Vicinanza al popolo austriaco, ai familiari delle vittime e ai feriti.
— Giuseppe Conte (@GiuseppeConteIT) November 2, 2020
It came just days after three people were killed in a knife rampage in a church in the French city of Nice last Thursday, blamed on an Islamist Tunisian recently arrived in Europe.
Italy’s foreign minister on Tuesday said the EU should consider a US-style Patriot Act to boost anti-terrorism efforts, in the wake of attacks in Vienna and Nice.
In a statement posted on social media, Luigi Di Maio said both the EU and Italy must raise their security levels, called for tighter controls on mosques in his country, and pushed for action on illegal migration.
But he said it was also time “to start to think about something bigger and that concerns the whole of the EU – a Patriot Act on the American model, for example, because today we are all children of the same European people”.
“The security of one state equals the security of all the others,” he said.
“I will also discuss this with my counterparts in the coming days.”
The Patriot Act was introduced in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and gave law enforcement agencies sweeping counter-terrorism powers, including of surveillance.
Citing the Nice and Vienna attacks, Di Maio said: “It is clear that in the face of all of this, Europe and Italy itself cannot continue with just words.”
