In public he praises the “support” and “valuable advice” that always comes from the Quirinale. In private, Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, Giorgia Meloni’s ambidextrous arm, is quite saddened by the Quirinale’s stop to his Agriculture decree, approved on Monday in the Council of Ministers and now shrouded in doubts from the legislative office of President Sergio Mattarella.
Furthermore, the rules had been flaunted in a press conference by the Fratelli d’Italia big name and claimed on social media by the prime minister. However, yesterday morning Il Foglio revealed the inconsistencies discovered by the Quirinale on the decree and the tension between the government and Colle – which had been simmering in silence for 24 hours – came to the surface. Bringing with it suspicions and bad thoughts on the part of Palazzo Chigi, committed to defending with drawn sword the constitutional reform of the premiership in a perennial and complicated institutional balance.
On the other hand, there had already been a rather unpleasant precedent between the Quirinale and the Ministry of Food Sovereignty: the dance over the decree that prohibited synthetic meat, which ended up in a complex triangulation with the EU.
This time, however, the surprise on the part of Meloni and Lollobrigida was greater. Because among the Quirinale’s comments on the Agriculture decree there is above all the lack of the urgency criteria specific to the law decrees. This is why the minister between the lines, during a press point in Calabria, sends a jab at the Quirinale: “When there is a critical issue, there is always the requirement of urgency, especially if it concerns measures that concern a strategic sector like agriculture.”
In Mattarella’s area, however, they don’t think so, for example on the rule that decides the merger of the National Information System for the Development of Agriculture (Sin) company into the Agency for Agricultural Payments (Agea). The same goes for the one that brings back under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture, from that of the Environment, the Foresters as it was before the Conte I government. The forestry, environmental and agri-food corps is part of the Carabinieri. And evidently, they reason from the Fratelli d’Italia camp, raising suspicion, “this maneuver is bothering someone”. It’s a stop that doesn’t go down well with the government, the one discovered by the online edition of this newspaper yesterday morning.
Also because the most serious observation concerns the key regulation on solar panels which, for the Quirinale as it is written, risks clashing with the Pnrr which has invested five billion euros in energy communities. An important disavowal. And it arrives less than a month after the European elections, hitting a business sector, the agricultural one, on which Fratelli d’Italia is counting heavily at the polls. What happens now? The situation is delicate and Dal Colle tends not to escalate tensions, not fueling conflicts with the government. The formula used is that of “interlocution” between the legislative offices. In a nutshell, beyond the bureaucracy, it means that the decree, in order to have Mattarella’s signature, will have to remove the contested points, the merging of the two companies and the movement of the Foresters, and better explain the part about the stop to the ground plants powered by the ‘solar power. An argument that sees clean energy companies on the barricades. Like the “Alliance for photovoltaics”, a cartel of companies, ready to seize the opportunity to launch an appeal to the government: “Don’t stop the energy transition, the executive should think again”.
To avoid a sensational rift, Meloni is ready to present the parts underlined with the blue pencil in the form of amendments, so that during the conversion the Parliament, and therefore the majority, brings home the result, by hook or by crook. It’s called a cold shower, anyway. Also because it arrived almost concurrently with Mattarella’s reference to the Constitution, another message addressed, to be malicious, to those who govern. But the polls are looming and Meloni is in a hurry. At the moment, 20 and 29 May are the two dates for the next meetings of the Council of Ministers. Six other decrees are at stake which could be put on the table at Palazzo Chigi (the agency on the accounts of football clubs, the intervention on waiting lists in healthcare, justice with the division of careers, Salvini’s house-saver and the rules against EU infringements).
But what also makes the government company lively is the back-and-forth between the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti and the deputy prime minister, and leader of the Brothers of Italy, Antonio Tajani on the Superbonus. The latter attacks: “I have some doubts about the retroactivity of Giorgetti’s latest proposal: businesses and banks must be listened to to understand if there is any damage or if Parliament needs to intervene to make proposals, without prejudice to the indispensable intervention to stop the damage of the Superbonus. But on this specific part, for the retroactivity part, even ten years is perhaps too long.” But here’s Giorgetti: “I have a responsibility and I defend Italy’s interests as Minister of Economy. Is that clear?” And Tajani, again: “I too am in the interest of the Italians. It is a proposal from Giorgetti, it is not a proposal from the government, because I have never been consulted. We will evaluate the contents”.
