This is very sad news.
Unfortunately aviation is in a very baby and immature state in Italy. I reckon the Captain did the right thing.
I have flown in Italy as a FO and reported a Captain once because he almost tried to kill us by attempting a an almost kamikaze visual approach into Runway 11 at Orio and we were way high. The FA reported the passengers faces white with terror as they clamped onto their seats. We eventually landed halfway down the runway with 1400 fpm on the VSI, it was a hard landing! I reported this both to the Chief Pilot and the Director Flight Ops and almost got fired for critiscizing someone senior to me in rank. Fortunately after a few months other FOs had the courage to speak up about this Captain and the Director Flight Ops apologized and thanked me.
I have simpathy for the Air Europe Captain, but that's Italy!