Stop in Crotone for the candidate for the European elections in the Democratic Party for the southern constituency, Sandro Ruotolo. A journalist for fifty years, former senator of the Republic in the last legislature, we interviewed him in the Video Calabria studios – dealing with various topics: from infrastructure to healthcare, from migrants to agriculture.
Infrastructure
«The Democratic Party is now part of the “No bridge” movement, it is no longer a guest. It’s an old work, it’s an old idea – so to speak – of being in the South. It’s a work that’s leaking from all sides, the project doesn’t exist. It’s that classic election campaign thing, pre-election campaign thing, which hasn’t consolidated.” «We need much more infrastructure. We have 14 Calabrians out of 100 who give up treatment, we have 70,000 Calabrians who have started making journeys of hope to the North again every year. We have municipalities where there is no drinking water, we have railway lines, roads. On the port of Gioia Tauro? Certainly the port sector must enter Europe.”
The idea of Europe
«It is a Europe that from an economic power becomes a full-fledged political player on the international scene. In these two years, between the war in Ukraine and what is happening in Gaza in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we are seeing that Europe has not touched the ball. And then, certainly, a common defense policy, but not the army that has to go with the toy soldiers – but it is a common foreign policy. And there is certainly a need for peace.”
Migrants
«The law of the sea tells us only one thing: we must help. Italy doesn’t want NGOs at sea? Substitute NGOs for resources, as in 2013 there was that large rescue operation at sea after the Lampedusa massacre with 368 victims. After that, Europe needs immigrants: they must be regularized, a policy of flows must be implemented and, certainly, Italy cannot shoulder the whole burden because, it is clear that from the African continent you arrive in Lampedusa, you arrive in Cutro, you arrive in Roccella. It’s not like it arrives in Germany, or it arrives in the Scandinavian countries. So, from this point of view, Italy is right in wanting a redistribution of immigrants. It’s not that since they touch the ground in Italy, we just have to identify them. No, a concerted policy must be made.”
«We must build Europe, we must have an idea of Europe which is not that of a balanced budget, that of the bankers, that of the bureaucrats. Each of us remembers the dramatic scenes of bankrupt Greece. We like the Europe that comes to the aid of populations in difficulty, like Italy with the pandemic.”
“Italy will emerge from the crisis if the South is also there: if the South is not there, what are today the richest regions of Italy will become poor.”
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