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The Italian State Archives, together with the Sopraintendenze Archivistiche Regionali (the regionally-based advisory and inspection service for the country's entire network of archives), are facing deep cuts in funding from the national government, ranging from 40 to 60 percent of their budgets. Luciano Violante, an opposition leader in the lower house of parliament, denounced the cuts during a parliamentary debate last week, saying that they would prevent the State Archives and the Sopraintendenze from paying even their power and phone bills, thus placing their valuable collections in danger. Within months or even weeks, he said, most of Italy's State Archives could be forced to close their doors to researchers. Similar concerns had been voiced earlier by a group of archive directors, who on 9 April organized a protest in Florence demanding talks with Giuliano Urbani, the national minister for Cultural Heritage, to discuss the proposed cuts. [...] In a statement released early in May, the Section of Professional Associations of the International Council on Archives (ICA/SPA), representing 70 professional associations and over 70,000 archival and records management professionals worldwide, pointed out that without sufficient funding for Italian archives, "government will lose its operational memory and will be less effective; Italian citizens will lose their fundamental right of access to personal and administrative information; researchers worldwide will lose access to Italy's archival heritage; and Italy's pre-eminent place in world culture and thought will be endangered."Andante.com via Librarian.netThe supporting statement of the Society of Hellenic Archives can be found on it's website.