Euro-MP Angelo Ciocca grabbed and stomped on the European Union Economy commissioner Pierre Moscovici's notes with his shoe in what Moscovici on Wednesday called a "grotesque" stunt against the EU executive's rejection of Italy's expansionary budget plans.
After a press conference on Tuesday, Angelo Ciocca from Italy's ruling far-right League party held up his shoe and used it to trample on the papers Moscovici had just used to present the European Commission's decision.
"The 'Made in Italy' shoe episode is grotesque," Moscovici tweeted.
"At first you smile about it and trivialize it because it is ridiculous, then you get used to a muted symbolic violence, and one day you wake up with fascism. Let's not lower our guard!"
"Democracy is a fragile treasure," Moscovici's tweet added.
Ciocca, also took to Twitter, saying he used a "Made in Italy" shoe for the stunt and that Moscovici had told a "mountain of lies" about Italy.
"Rome deserves respect from these Euroimbeciles," Ciocca tweeted.
In an unprecedented move, the Commission rejected Italy's draft 2019 budget on Tuesday, giving the country's eurosceptic government three weeks to redraft it after warning against a substantial deviation from eurozone fiscal rules.
Italy's coalition government of the League and the populist Five-Star Movement has been locked in a dispute with Brussels over its plan to triple next year's deficit target to 2.4 percent of output - flouting EU requirements that the deficit should fall steadily towards a balanced budget.
Rome and Brussels have both pledged to engage in a "constructive dialogue" over Italy's budget plans, but premier Giuseppe Conte has said there is no reason to change the deficit target.
