(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 20 - The time will come to put out the neo-fascist Flame symbolising the one over Mussolini's tomb at the centre of the logo of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, an FdI bigwig told an Italian newspaper Wednesday while stressing that this would be a free choice and not one imposed on the party.
    The neoFascist flame dates back to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party founded by Mussolini diehards after the Second World War.
    It was ditched by one of the MSI's successor parties, but Meloni restored it when she founded FdI in December 2012.
    Meloni's critics have repeatedly urged her to remove it but she says the call is anachronistic. The premier has repeatedly condemned Fascism's suspension of democracy and its "odious" laws against the Jews.
    "If we want to move forward and we certainly want to look forward, that is, to the future, then the time will come to put out the Flame," Minister for Relations with Parliament Luca Ciriani said in an interview with Il Foglio.
    The time will come when we will remove it from the symbol.
    "It may not be soon but it will come, but by our choice and certainly not because someone imposes it on us.
    "Already now we can say that the Flame belongs to a past history, that of my youth that I certainly do not deny. Today many young people of twenty or thirty years do not know its meaning".
    Speaking about the future, the Fratelli d'Italia representative continued: "We have a conservative project, already implemented in the European Parliament, which in general terms means bringing together the tradition of the Right, mine, with the liberal and Risorgimento tradition, with the Catholic one".
    As for the MSI flame, Ciriani specifies: "It is part of our history and our identity, even if we have already overcome it, it is an established fact.
    "With absolute tranquility.
    "It is a symbolic element, and like many other symbolic elements it will have its parable, but it will never be denied.
    "Without drama.
    "And without fanfare.
    "It is not even a topic of urgent debate.
    "It will just happen, also because only those of my age can be fond of that outdated symbol.
    "But for very respectable and romantic reasons".
    "The Flame," Ciriani added, "was my youth and for that symbol we would have thrown ourselves on the fire but a boy of today does not care at all.
    "It is right this way and I can understand it".
    Asked about Ciriani's statement, FdI co-founder and Senate Speaker Ignazio la Russa said "even the world will end sooner or later." This prompted Green-Left Alliance (AVS) House Whip Luana Zanella to say: "Symbols communicate meanings, condense sense and content. The flame expresses the roots and the link with the fascist past of Fratelli d'Italia: it is therefore an outrage to the memory of the fallen of the Resistance and to our Constitutional Charter but Ignazio La Russa jokes about it". (ANSA).