Even yesterday in the Chamber the representation of Forza Italia was very thin, fluctuating from 34 to 45 presences, with the conspicuous absence of the Calabrian deputies: that is to say the region, with the president Roberto Occhiuto, deputy national secretary of the Azzurri, who has so far expressed the greatest doubts about the Calderoli reform. In truth, Berlusconi’s followers have long felt the fear of becoming entangled in the web of differentiated autonomy, so much so as to support any hypothesis of postponing its effectiveness: «The Commission – confidentially report some southern parliamentarians of the centre-right – will first have to identify the Lep (the essential levels of services which must be the same in every part of Italy, ed.), then we need to find the resources and finally there will be proposals for agreements with the Regions. How to say? At least two years will pass before anything moves.”
The minister Roberto Calderoli, in the Chamber, confessed that if the necessary funds are not found for the South, a year-by-year verification will be carried out. In short, it’s not an encouraging start. The Forza Italia group nevertheless attempted to engage the Meloni Government on four agendas which, beyond the limited effectiveness of the instrument, politically reflect the distance between the League’s ambitions to accelerate devolution and the prudence of the new course of Forza Italia, a party that aims for the primacy of a regenerated moderate centrist pole that looks above all to the South. «But there will be no shocks – comments the blue deputy Paolo Emilio Russo, rapporteur of the provision with which the Meloni Government undertakes to verify in advance the socio-economic impact of differentiated autonomy on the country -. We will vote unitedly in favor of the reform by virtue of the coalition pact, although our indications were already clear in the Senate, where the bill passed with our obligation to activate the transfers of functions exclusively in the presence of the necessary financial coverage”.
The Samnite MP from FI also takes the same position Francesco Maria Rubano: «The bill that we approve is different from the initial one of the League. FI demanded that before talking about the possibility for a Region to be autonomous, the Essential Performance Level (Lep) must be guaranteed. We have presented 4 agendas which commit the Government to verify the impact of the matters subject to devolution by Parliament and clarified that any hypothesis of devolution must be approved by Parliament”.
The four agendas bear the signature of the Italian group leader Paolo Barelli, of the deputy Raffaele Nevi, of the president of the Constitutional Affairs commission Nazario Pagano and of one of the rapporteurs of the measure, precisely Paolo Emilio Russo. It’s about real stakes posed by the Azzurri: Forza Italia, in fact, commits the Government «to evaluate the opportunity to provide, before proceeding with the stipulation of agreements which provide for the attribution of functions relating to further forms and particular conditions of autonomy on the matters excluded from the determination of the Lep, the preparation of an impact analysis of the regulation which takes into account the evaluation of the effects of the hypotheses of regional legislative and regulatory intervention, as well as of general administrative, programming or planning acts, which impact on the activities of citizens and businesses and on the organization and functioning of public administrations, also through comparison of alternative options, taking into account the need to ensure the correct competitive functioning of the market, the protection of individual freedoms, and the maintenance of the general principles of the legal system, to be presented to the Chambers for examination according to the respective regulations”. Furthermore, the provision continues, “it is appropriate to ensure that social and civil rights are guaranteed to all citizens throughout the national territory”.
The Prime Minister is asked to apply «rigorously the option referred to in Article 2, paragraph 2, to protect the legal or economic unity of the State», or that «the object of the negotiation may be limited to some subjects or areas of subjects identified by the Region in the act of initiative”. Forza Italia still asks to provide that the Prime Minister’s decree schemes envisaged by the DDL, including those on the periodic updating of the Lep, are «accompanied by a technical report, to allow a verification also in the parliamentary context of the financial implications of the transfer, as well as compliance with the criteria established by the same agreements for the identification of the goods and resources subject to transfer”. The blue party, then, wants the Chamber to commit the Government «not to start negotiations on acts of initiative of the Regions and not to proceed with the joint discussion on the acts of initiative on which such discussion has already been started before the entry into force of the law on Autonomy, up to the definition of the relevant Lep”.
