PESCARA. Abruzzo can have its own weight on the major issues that will be decided in Strasbourg. From peace to Pnrr funds; from the moral question in politics to real and not fake candidacies. Giuseppe Conte, M5S leader, is certain of this.
President Conte, where does the 5 Star Movement fit into the European Parliament?
We will be in a progressive group that has peace at the center of its political action. Our delegation within the European Parliament could be decisive in avoiding a nationalist drift that would primarily harm the interests of our country. Anyone who chooses to vote for an M5S parliamentarian has the guarantee that they are sending a true “peace builder” to Europe.
Real and fake candidates: Valentina Corneli and Fabio Stella, the two Abruzzese running for Strasbourg, are part of the first of the two categories: what added value will the Movement’s elected officials be able to provide in Europe?
They are real candidates because if elected, they will go to Brussels. Not like the leaders of the other parties who invite people to put their name on the ballot despite knowing that they will never go to Europe. This is deceiving voters and we don’t do that. Furthermore, our candidates are all mirrored and valid as Valentina Corneli And Fabio Stellabut I also think about Mario Furore And Pasquale Tridico that occur here in the South.
Healthcare, work, territorial identities to defend, transnational citizenship income and migrants: the destinies of Italy and Abruzzo are being decided in Europe. Let the voters of Abruzzo understand this
Meloni says she is a woman of the people but the facts tell us that the people have completely forgotten this. Healthcare is collapsing and the vote-catching “decrees” made in the middle of the election campaign are nothing but a mockery. Work is too often underpaid but Meloni said no to the minimum wage in Italy.
The truth is that we are at a crossroads. Italians must choose between those who are only capable of sending weapons indefinitely and those who want peace negotiations; between the new cuts imposed by Brussels – and approved by the Meloni government – and new investments in healthcare and the environment. Having many M5S MEPs is the only guarantee of being able to reverse the course on which they are dragging us.
The topic of peace: why should we no longer send weapons to Ukraine?
Because the only way that can lead to peace is that of diplomacy and negotiations. This warmongering line has brought us nothing good to date. There are 6 million Ukrainian refugees and tens of thousands dead on both fronts. The arms market has grown thanks to military escalation and we are increasingly closer to a Third World War. Our kids deserve a Europe that gives them a future, a job and not puts a helmet on their heads.
And what is your position on the Middle East issue?
I am ashamed of a Meloni government that abstains on a truce and ceasefire in Gaza in the face of the massacre of over 35 thousand Palestinian civilians, especially women and children. We need an Italy and a Europe with its back straight against Netayahu’s madness. The M5S has repeatedly presented motions for the State of Palestine to be recognised. We must advance the cause of “two peoples, two states”.
The investigations: from the Santanché case to Toti. How should the moral question be addressed in politics?
For us there is only one way of doing politics, that is, acting in the interests of citizens, fighting corruption and malfeasance and that perverse intertwining of business and politics that we have seen in the many investigations of recent months, from north to south of Italy. . The growing abstentionism is also due to this, because these events – I am thinking of Liguria or the one involving the minister Santanchè for fraud on Covid funds – undermine citizens’ trust in institutions. We cannot afford this.
A frank judgment on the attack on Mattarella launched by a lawmaker.
Request the resignation of the president Mattarella it was unworthy, serious and rambling. The League tried to campaign by attacking the President of the Republic. Who, among other things, had said some obvious things. We are in Europe and we simply need to go to Europe with our heads held high and not like this government which accepted the Franco-German proposal which even involves cuts of 13 billion a year.
Among the great contradictions of politics in Italy, would you put first the strategy of the Brothers of Italy which eliminates the Superbonus and wants to win in Europe where, on the contrary, the ecological transition is a dogma?
If only it were the Superbonus, which Fratelli d’Italia, Lega and Forza Italia wanted to strengthen and extend. The contradiction is permanent: first they announced that they wanted to abolish excise duties on petrol, then they canceled the discounts and confirmed the excise duties; first they announced the tax on bank extra profits, then they made it optional with zero euros of revenue for the State and zero help for those in difficulty; first they announced aid for births, then they increased taxes on early childhood; first they said enough “friendships”, then they placed sisters, brothers-in-law, friends and relatives everywhere; first they said “the fun is over for Europe”, then they got a Stability Pact worth 13 billion in cuts a year from Germany and France; before they said “never privatize Poste”, now they have put the company on the market. Look, I’ll end it here, but the list is only partial.
Another major issue is that of the use of Pnrr funds. Italy has this great opportunity thanks to the governments that preceded the current one. Do you believe that the Meloni executive is maintaining the times imposed by the Plan?
The only thing this Government has been able to do so far is sell itself a “remodulation” of the Pnrr, which is just a wave of cuts to projects for municipalities and healthcare, and postpone most of the expenses to the two-year period 2025- 2026, waiting for who knows what implementation miracle. The harsh reality of the numbers remains. In the year 2023 alone, entirely under the responsibility of the Meloni Government, net of the tax credits on the Superbonus and Transition 4.0, measures of the M5S which have shown the highest grounding capacity, the Executive spent only 8 billion of the 102 total collected by Italy so far. There are missions, such as the one dedicated to Health, in which only 3.7% of the initial allocation was spent. Do we realize?
One last question on the strict rules of the Five Star Movement which become a handicap in administrative and regional elections. Will it be possible to waive the second term limit?
We have given ourselves the dual mandate rule to protect citizens and to prevent politics from becoming a private affair of protecting the personal destiny of a privileged few.
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