Ilaria Salis, Member of the European Parliament for Avs, has been ordered by a court to pay compensation after being found to have dismissed two of her former collaborators in Brussels "without just cause." She will be required to pay them a total of more than 300,000 euros.
This was established at first instance by Judge Franco Caroleo of the Milan Labour Court in a ruling that upheld the claims of two former collaborators represented by lawyers Francesca Verdura, Tiziana Laratta and Sergio Romanotto, who had previously attempted in vain to serve the introductory appeal to her official address of residence.
Salis, who was arrested in Hungary on charges of having attacked far-right militants during demonstrations at the so-called 'Day of Honour', was elected as a Member of the European Parliament with the Greens and Left Alliance in June 2024.
She has several collaborators, two of whom were let go after just a few months (in February 2025) and, according to the ruling, without notice. The two contracts, both running until the end of the parliamentary term (16 July 2029), carried essentially the same remuneration (2,900 and 3,000 euros per month) and similar duties: developing projects aimed at enhancing the MEP's role, designing and managing campaigns and events in Italy and abroad, providing assistance with contacts with authorities, and offering political consultancy of a strategic and tactical nature.
According to the complaint, one assistant first received early termination of her contract due to "a breakdown in the relationship of trust" that had turned the working arrangement into a situation of "environmental and personal incompatibility"; a colleague then had his assignment revoked with immediate effect "in view of the manifest dissatisfaction regarding the content of his collaboration." An irreparable rift.
Salis did not appear at the hearings. The verdict from last March emphasises that "the burden of proving just cause certainly falls on the employer," but by "remaining in default," Salis "has clearly not discharged that burden" and "it must therefore be established that just cause was absent in the dismissals under challenge." The outcome is a damages award totalling 300,900 euros, representing the two collaborators' lost earnings until the end of the term, plus 10,000 euros in legal costs.
