Monza: Future National Monument in Italy?
A Northern League deputy wants to make Monza a national monument, which would allow the Lombardy circuit to receive aid of €500,000 per year until 2014.
Make the Monza Autodrome a national monument, that is the bill proposed by Paolo Grimoldi, a Lombard deputy of the Northern League – a populist and regionalist party in northern Italy: « We want to defend this temple of excellence in Formula One and car and motorcycle racing in general, which contains both the History and the future of motorsports. »
A native of Milan and raised in Monza, Paolo Grimoldi was notably one of the most fervent defenders of the Lombard circuit, drafting an 18-page report on the feasibility of organizing a Grand Prix in Rome—which has since been abandoned—and the economic consequences it could have had for Monza and its region.
Paolo Grimoldi defines his bill as an act of love for [his] city, but above all as the recognition owed to millions of sports enthusiasts who, worldwide, consider the Monza Autodrome as a living monument. Obviously, we hope for the support of the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Lorenzo Ornaghi [also from the Monza region], too busy with the repeated scandals of Pompeii and the Colosseum, and who has so far paid little attention to his native North.
According to Il Giorno, which reports the information, this bill would also be accompanied by a subsidy of €500,000 per year, until 2014, paid to the company in charge of managing the circuit to help with the conservation work on the historic parts of the track. Thus, while the idea will no doubt appeal to Formula One enthusiasts, it has little chance of succeeding given that Italy is severely hit by the economic crisis and even as the Italian government has been forced to adopt a policy of privatizing the management of its major historical monuments.
