“It’s a historic and beautiful day. Parliament has given substance to the will of millions of Lombardy and Venetians who, with the 2017 referendum, clearly expressed in a democratic way their desire for stronger regional self-government”. Thus the undersecretary to the Presidency of the Lombardy Region with responsibility for Autonomy and Relations with the Regional Council Mauro Piazza commented on the approval of the bill on Autonomy definitively approved by the Chamber of Deputies.
The representative of the Lombardy Council recalled the commitment made in this direction by the former Lombard Governor Roberto Maroni, who passed away in November 2022. “Our thoughts – Piazza recalled – go to Roberto Maroni, who with the popular consultation of eight years ago he traced the path of this reform, which today is achieved thanks to the tireless work of another Lombard, the Minister of Regional Affairs and Autonomy Roberto Calderoli, is concretely achieved, opening a new season for our country.
While the House and Senate were discussing the Bill, the Lombardy Region worked in parallel to be immediately ready to activate autonomy. “After a long year’s work, under the direction of President Attilio Fontana, and with the collaboration of all the regional directorates of the Lombardy Council – explains Undersecretary Piazza – once the law is published in the Official Journal, we are ready to activate ourselves in negotiations with the central government, also taking advantage of the Pre-Understanding of 28 February 2018, which was a first step towards the recognition of greater autonomy for the Lombardy Region”.
Piazza makes it known which are the subjects for which the Lombardy Region is ready to ask for greater forms of autonomy: Foreign trade, Complementary and supplementary pensions, Professions, Civil protection, International relations and with the EU, Coordination with public finance and the tax system, health protection, protection of the environment and the ecosystem.
Six of these eight matters, the representative of Palazzo Lombardia points out, “are non-LEP matters, which can immediately be the subject of the resumption of negotiations with the Government. For the last two – Piazza observed – there are already important determinations in the state legislation on the subject of essential levels of performance, in particular for the protection of health, a matter for which the essential levels are provided for by the so-called LEA (referred to in the Decree of President of the Council of Ministers of 12 January 2017), Protection of the environment and the ecosystem, a matter for which law 132/2016 has established the so-called essential levels of environmental technical performance – LEPTA”.
We will move within this framework, Piazza assured, “having a firm idea that with regional autonomy there will not be a new form of centralism. On the contrary – he underlines – there will be a new protagonism for all local authorities, in which the Lombardy Region will become director of a progressive process characterized by gradualness to promote economic development and cohesion to remove economic and social imbalances and to encourage effective exercise of personal rights”.
“I thank Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini who has always believed in this project and for having supported this path, to the Parliamentarian and Coordinator of the League Fabrizio Cecchetti and to the entire Lombard League who has been working for 40 years to obtain this important result” concluded Piazza.
caption: from left. Minister Roberto Calderoli, undersecretary Mauro Piazza
