White smoke from the majority on the reforms at yesterday’s summit at Palazzo Chigi. First engaged on the maneuver front, Giorgia Meloni manages to get the budget law sent to Parliament and immediately afterwards presides (in the so-called yellow room on the first floor of the Prime Minister’s office) another meeting with the allies in which in plein, also taking advantage of the agreement on the position of prime minister, its historic electoral strength.
There The leader of Via della Scrofa gets the green light not only for the direct election of the prime minister, but also for the lifetime ban of senators and the so-called anti-tilt rule.. The complete “package”, contained in Casellati’s constitutional reform project, is expected to be presented to the Council of Ministers on Friday, November 3. Matteo Salvini rejoices on social networks: “No technical governments, changes of course, changes of majorities and parties in the government, without appointments of new senators for life. The vote of the Italians will now finally count more.” Antonio Tajani, Fi’s number one, echoes him: “We agree on the text that will go to the CDM.” “We have shared all the content that was proposed to us, I believe that this week the Council of Ministers will approve the bill that will then begin its processing,” says Maurizio Lupi, political leader of Noi Moderates.
The Minister of Institutional Reforms, Elisabetta Casellati, is satisfied: “Once again the center-right confirms itself as united. We have taken a big step towards the ‘reform of reforms’, which will give stability to the country and restore the centrality of the vote of citizens with the direct election of the Prime Minister”. “From the meeting there emerged full agreement with the constitutional reform project that provides for the direct election of the Prime Minister,” say sources from the Chigi Palace.
Therefore, the appointment of senators for life disappears, a position that continues to be available only to former heads of state. In particular, the anti-reversion rule, one of the most delicate of the entire reform, would offer, in the event of the “fall” of the Prime Minister elected by the people, the possibility of trying to rebuild the majority again, either with the same prime minister or, in any case, with another representative of the same majority elected by the citizens by vote. Therefore, only in case of failed attempts will it be possible to return to the polls. Meloni also receives the support of Matteo Renzi, who offers his support.
“We are alternatives to the sovereign majority of Salvini and Meloni and we are alternatives to the populist minority of Conte and Schlein,” begins the former democratic fighter who then “opens”: “However, if Meloni introduces a constitutional reform with the direct election of the prime minister, we will be there.“. In addition to Meloni, Tajani and Salvini, the centrists Maurizio Lupi and Lorenzo Cesa participated in the summit. The meeting, which followed the maneuver, was expanded to include Casellati and the Minister of Relations with Parliament, Luca Ciriani Present were the undersecretaries of the presidency Alfredo Mantovano and Giovanbattista Fazzolari.
The rejection of the opposition (except Renzi)
The positions on the ground remain the same as months ago, when Giorgia Meloni met with the opposition in Montecitorio to debate constitutional reforms. Action, Pd, M5S, Avs, Più Europa confirm the rejection: no to the direct election of the Prime Minister. The only one who is willing to support a similar “mayor of Italy” is Renzi, and in this case too it is a confirmation. The five-point project on which the majority has reached an agreement will be examined on Friday in the Council of Ministers to start the process in Parliament from the House, in all probability, given that the Senate is already busy with autonomy.
The electoral law is also mentioned in the draft mandate proposed by the Meloni government. A single title: majority premium at 55%. There are no other indications. It will be Parliament that debates the wide range of options, models and systems that underlie that “title”. And if Regarding the no to the direct election of the prime minister, the oppositions, except Renzi, move together, the electoral law could represent a thornier issue on which to find a common position.. A starting point could be to overcome blocked lists: return the power of choice to voters as an “antidote” also to abstentionism.
Elly Schlein, a guest of the Action assembly, reiterated it: we need “an electoral law that returns to the voters the power to elect representatives and this discussion must be had immediately without waiting for the legislature to end,” he remarked to the applause of the public. Regarding the reform, the PD’s no to the presidency is clear.
He says Andrea Giorgis, senator and constitutionalist: “If the Prime Minister is elected by the citizens, he is no longer appointed by the President of the Republic nor legitimized by Parliament through trust. From the primacy of Parliament we move to the primacy of the Government. Democracy is reduced to the election .of the leader.”
He Democratic Senator Darío Parrini resorts to a play on words: Third Republic? With Meloni’s mandate “we would have a Sad Republic, in which the Head of Government keeps Parliament and the Head of State at bay.” While carlo calenda continues to point to Matteo Salvini, who speaks of an anti-reversion reform: “Dear Salvini, I cannot imagine a worse investment and betrayal of the voter than that of the government that you carried out with the 5S after the 2018 elections, after having secured your voters, quite the opposite.
The leader of Acción insists: “And what about the transition from ‘outside the euro’ to ‘EU, do whatever you want with me’ or even the lies you told pensioners about the abolition of Fornero? Every day you go backwards ignoring every promise. And of course, it will be a great gain for all citizens to give up having Renzo Piano, Elena Cattaneo, Liliana Segre in the Senate through another figure like Salvini. Go to work… you know the rest “
For Ricardo Magos from Più Europa “Giorgia Meloni’s constitutional reform is the grave of representative democracy”, an “attempt by the right to transform Italy into Orban’s Hungary, where all powers are concentrated in the hands of a single person.”
Nicola Fratoianni is more skeptical about the fact that the reform will ever see the light of day, he sees it more as a weapon to distract attention from the country’s problems: “They hope to divert attention from the country’s social crisis. They are wrong and they are very Serious. “They are wrong: we will not let him go, we will continue to demand that the government respond to the real problems of the country. And they are also wrong about the reforms: they will not be allowed to distort our Constitution.”
Same considerations of M5S: “The government resorts to another weapon of mass distraction and announces a reform that seems like a true constitutional disaster. Constitutional engineering is confused with the adventurism of amateurs in the lurch,” say the leaders of the groups in the Constitutional Affairs commissions of the House and Senate, Alfonso Colucci and Alessandra Maiorino. “Based on the advances released by Palazzo Chigi, it would be easy for us to underline with a blue pencil the absurdities contained in this reform. But we will do so in due time: today Italy is worried about the terrible budget law of the Meloni government and “The M5S works so that citizens have the answers they deserve. “We will not allow the government to talk about anything else.”
