The Regional Councilor of Calabria, Francesco Ernesto Alecci, expressed harsh criticism following the approval of differentiated autonomy in the Chamber. Alecci accused the President of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto, of having betrayed Calabria and its citizens.
“The Center-Right reform passes with the connivance of the representatives of our region in Parliament and President Occhiuto. For months he did nothing to oppose it. The not very credible words in defense of his actions sound even more like a mockery today,” declared Alecci.
According to Alecci, the approval of the law on differentiated autonomy represents a point of no return for national unity. “Today the Italian Republic is no longer ‘one and indivisible’! This was sanctioned by a far-right, secessionist and Northern-leaning Government which, after an exhausting night session which ended at 7.45 in the morning, approved the law on Differentiated Autonomy in the Chamber. A law that puts an end to all hopes of redemption and growth for Southern Italy, increasingly condemned to isolation and depopulation, with entire generations of southerners who instead of a layette for the birth will already have a suitcase ready to emigrate.”
Alecci harshly criticized President Occhiuto’s actions, accusing him of having completed a betrayal of the Calabrians’ electoral mandate. “A rubbish, a wretched reform that passes the Chamber with the guilty connivance of the highest representative of our region, President Roberto Occhiuto, who today completes his betrayal of the mandate of the Calabrian voters. And with him all our representatives in the Chamber who voted yes as Tilde Minasi, Mario Occhiuto, Fausto Orsomarso and Ernesto Rapani had done in the Senate.”
The contradictory statements of Occhiuto, who defined the law as improvable only after having voted in favor of differentiated autonomy in the State-Regions Conference of March 2023, were particularly harsh for Alecci. “He who had spoken of a ‘great challenge and great opportunity’ for our region, he who in all these months has never opposed this wicked reform although he never misses an opportunity to underline his political weight in Rome, he himself who tried to mix the cards with the usual proclamations and the usual showman’s ideas (‘No money, no party’), he himself who, before the European elections, asked the Calabrians for new support for a stronger Calabria in Europe, the same one Calabria which he, together with his Government colleagues, condemns to an increasingly poor and marginal future.”
Alecci concluded his complaint by underlining the serious consequences that the reform will have on Calabria. “Our region will be increasingly penalized and will have fewer and fewer resources for healthcare, school, transport, social policies, the environment, while the gap between North and South, between richer regions and poorer regions will increase dramatically. . All this hurts and it hurts to know that our representatives at the highest institutional levels were complicit in this disgrace.”
Despite everything, Alecci has promised to continue fighting against what he defines as a secessionist drift, trying to still give hope to young Calabrians. “We will continue to fight in all democratic forums to hinder this secessionist drift and try to give our young people hope again.”
