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Italian Communist Party leader Marco Rizzo announced his party will seek to take Italy out of the European Union in order to create "real change" in the lives of workers. Mr Rizzo claimed Italians are currently taken advantage of by the "bankers" controlling the European Union system and by the General Confederation of Italian Industry (Confindustria) – a close ally to Brussels. He said: "We are against the EU because it’s a weapon in the hands of big banks and finance.

EUROPARLIAMENT TV•LA7 Italian election: Marco Rizzo said he wanted Italy to break free from the

"The Italian Communist Party (PCI) already said so in 1957, when alone it fought against the Treaty of Rome. If you replace the power of the European Central Bank (ECB) and Mario Draghi with that of Marchionne and Confindustria nothing really changes. That’s what happened with Brexit." Mr Rizzo added that leaving the EU would be the only way for Italy to achieve the "deep societal transformation" it needs to survive. Speaking to online magazine Formiche, he continued: "We want to leave the European Union because we want a deep societal transformation that needs to put workers first, and which cannot happen in the EU cage. "An example of what we want is to nationalise big companies moving abroad and laying off hundreds of workers – with workers managing the companies. But in the EU this cannot be done."

We are against the EU because it’s a weapon in the hands of big banks and finance Marco Rizzo