07/01/2026

The measure is contained in a resolution approved by the City Executive on December 31, entitled “Commitment to Animal Welfare Towards the Transition to Electric Vehicles.” It targets the 38 horse owners involved in pulling carriages who attended a course promoted by the municipal administration on “animal welfare” and who complied with the mayoral ordinance issued last June, which introduced only mild restrictions.

Meanwhile, as shown by a photograph sent to IHP in recent days by an outraged citizen, horses continue to be exploited and forced to work on the streets. And since when are people rewarded simply for doing their duty? What sense does it make to use public money to incentivize compliance with minimal and weak rules that do not guarantee real protection for horses?

The total expenditure for the City of Palermo amounts to €57,000. As if that were not enough, the resolution sets no binding conditions with regard to the much-touted goal of abolishing carriages: those who receive the contribution are not required to purchase electric vehicles or to decommission animal-drawn ones. This is stated in black and white by the City of Palermo’s General Accountant in the opinion on accounting regularity, which contains more than one criticism of the City Executive.

“The disbursement of blanket contributions in favor of a specific professional category, justified by the relinquishment of part of their profits due to restrictive mayoral ordinances, cannot be classified as a ‘cost of a service provided by the authority,’ but rather as a non-repayable grant,” the document reads. It goes on to add: “Despite the resolution’s title referring to a ‘transition to electric,’ the operative provisions do not condition the granting of the contribution on the purchase of electric vehicles or the scrapping of animal-drawn ones. In practice, this is an income subsidy.”

As if that were not enough, Palermo’s General Accounting Office also states that “natural disasters” cannot be invoked to distribute handouts to the gnuri: “A mayoral ordinance prompted by heat waves, even if based on climatic data, is an administrative act and cannot be equated with a ‘natural disaster’ for the purposes of accounting derogations, except through an interpretative stretch lacking a solid legal basis.”

In Palermo, we have moved from promising the abolition of horse-drawn carriages to rewarding those who continue to use them. For IHP, this initiative is incoherent and offensive to horses: wasted money and a mockery. Horses need to be freed from exploitation through serious, concrete, and feasible proposals. In this regard, IHP has long made itself available for dialogue with the municipal administration, but it has never been consulted.