ROME, Italy -- Proposals by Italy's anti-immigration Northern League to charge immigrants 50 euros (67 dollars) for residency permits and require a 10,000-euro guarantee to set up a business sparked a furor on Saturday.Parliament speaker Gianfranco Fini, head of the right-wing National Alliance, distanced himself from the proposals, calling them "discriminatory," while opposition leader Walter Veltroni said they "smacked of racism." The proposals are contained in amendments to a draft bill before parliament on measures to address the economic and financial crisis. Renato Farina, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedoms party, called on his Northern League ally to withdraw the amendments, while his colleague Fabio Granata called them a "tax on despair." Cabinet under-secretary Carlo Giovanni said the government was not associated with the initiative, saying there was a difference "between being unable to extend to non-EU residents all the rights enjoyed by Italians and levying heavier charges on those who already have low incomes." Some 225,000 of Italy's 3.46 million businesses are owned by non-EU citizens, according to a study by Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera. The number of Italian-owned businesses declined by 29,970 in 2007 compared with 2006, while that of foreign-owned businesses rose by 16,654, the study found. Berlusconi enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament thanks to his alliance with the anti-immigration Northern League, which doubled its strength to more than eight percent in last year's April elections. | 
