We receive and publish a speech by Fabriizio Caliolo, provincial coordinator of Uil Brindisi
Once the G7 has concluded in the Land of Brindisi, with everyone’s compliments to everyone for its success, ordinary life in Brindisi returns, peppered with skirmishes and power discussions that are completely distant from the needs and urgencies of citizens and workers.
Thus, just over a year after the election of Mayor Marchionna, we are astonished to witness an implosion of the government team of the capital municipality, according to a power scheme that we would gladly have left in the history books of the First Republic: parties and lists that threaten to make lack of support for the Administration by claiming a greater say in administrative choices. The usual script of a policy that has contributed significantly to relegating Brindisi and its territory to political and economic-social marginality over the decades. Our bitterness is above all towards the First Citizen, a serious, stubborn, prepared man of experience who, rather than relaunching his own on the historical springboard that Brindisi has just experienced, passively undergoes mechanisms that have nothing to do with the future of the territory and the urgent and necessary strategic choices for Brindisi.
The front pages of the local newspapers which for weeks have poured out all their energy to tell of a Brindisi in great shape, projected towards the future by the international visibility obtained, have collapsed in a few hours on a ruling class busy hoisting flags of power without ever contributing with a sole idea or direction to the burdensome choices that the City will have to make to ensure an economic, productive and cultural future for this territory.
The Union cannot silently watch this unworthy spectacle: every day we listen to thousands of Brindisi workers in our offices and workplaces who risk losing their jobs or who are looking for a livelihood or, again, who need answers for particular and urgent matters. Issues which evidently are worth less for Brindisi politics than the internal risk of redefining the perimeters of “who’s in charge”. The possibility of teaming up and networking to strengthen the territory in crucial historical moments like the one Brindisi is experiencing seems a thousand miles away.
The aspect that alarms the Union in this unfortunate political situation – not up to the potential of the city and the territory – is the resulting impotence of the Local Institutions in the face of the major processes that directly concern Brindisi. We have already verified this in recent months: what weight can a Municipality held hostage by these dynamics have towards Enel which after forty years demobilizes Brindisi without feeling obliged to provide a serious project for its workers and the development of the territory? And again: what contribution will the Local Administration of Brindisi be able to give to the choices regarding its Port and Airport, always classified as second-class infrastructure despite their unique characteristics and potential in the Mediterranean? The list could go on for a long time but we will stop so as not to list the pain of this area.
The Brindisi Uil urges all political actors in the city to show dignity in respect of Brindisi and the people of Brindisi. The city is experiencing a historic occasion in which it is called to resolve serious and decisive disputes for the socio-economic well-being of the near and future future. The last thing useful to this territory is the power struggle. Our invitation is to pour out energy and strategies to network and give more strength to the territory in the arduous challenges that await it.
We always remember, the future of this land is at stake.
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