Country Report 2018: Italy

Abstract

The Italian Constitution guarantees the fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly (art. 17), association (art. 18), religion (art. 19), expression (art. 21), establishment of trade unions (art. 39) and establishment of parties (art. 49). Additionally, the Italian law permits the formation and operation of both organizations recognized as legal persons and unrecognized organizations (which have not applied for the recognition or have not received it). To date, most of the Italian nonprofit organizations operate as unrecognized associations (Nonprofit Census by the National Statistics Institute, 2017).