The Fire and Security Industry in Italy is 
actually facing a strange and hazardous situation.
With a Luxembourg court sentence of 13th December, 2007, Italy was found guilty of non compliance with the Rome Treaty, with reference to an Italian Law for Public Security. This document - dated 1931 stated some rules about armed guarding activities that were against several articles of the Rome Treaty.
Presently a draft new Law is in the process of being prepared by Italian Minister of Internal Affairs. ANCISS ANIE, Italian Association for Security and Fire Safety, is contributing to the work and taking a strong position against certain articles of the proposed law.
There are two areas of contention: one is the need to have always and only armed guards in the MARCs and therefore a special license to operate a MARC.
The other area this one inspired by warden companies association, part of COESS is that any action originating from a MARC must end up in sending out a licensed armed guard.
Our association is also pointing out that the Service Directive is not allowing such a kind of interpretation.
We have taken a strong position, arguing that the interpretation given by the European Commission about the exemption of security services from the Service Directive talks about the substantial difference between at-a-distance security service and on-the-premises security services. The first kind is in the Directive, the second is out. So we cannot assume that an armed guard should be the unique and only admitted person to operate in a MARC.
It seems that as in all Europe Guarding Companies have a strict relationship with Public Government, so we are very afraid that our efforts to make positive comments on this draft of Law will not be taken into consideration by our Internal Minister.
Actually ANCISS ANIE has asked to be part of Euralarm Services Section. In the meantime, we will ask Euralarm to make appropriate steps in Brussels on behalf of ANCISS ANIE, in order to make clear that we want to work in our business with quality.
Andrea Ceppi & Carlo Loi
ANIE ANCISS / I
