LAMEZIA TERME It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to disentangle the “Babel” of voices that are overlapping on differentiated autonomy after the definitive green light of the Calderoli bill in the Chamber, but it is also appropriate to point out some aspects, now that the political positions have crystallized and the debate is starting to move to other venues beyond the parliamentary one. The Democratic Party, the M5S and the center-left in general are lashing out with great force against differentiated autonomydefining it as “Split Italy” and harmful for Calabria and the South, but there is no shortage of those who highlight the contradictions of the opposition, especially of the democrats. And the underlying contradiction is the fact that in reality differentiated autonomy starts precisely from reform of Title V of the Constitution desired years ago by the center-left. This is the “original sin” into which the League then insinuated itself with the line of leader Salvini and minister Calderoli, who decided to implement differentiated autonomy, obviously giving it a clear Northern traction and placing it as one of the three pillars on which the alliance of the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is based: the other two are the premiership, the “flag” of the Brothers of Italy, and the justice reform, the “flag” of Forza Italia.
The (many) comedy parts of the Democratic Party
Not surprisingly different In recent days, political analysts have agreed in highlighting the different speed of execution of the centre-right and the greater pragmatism compared to the Democratic Party and the centre-left, who are now – rightly so – preparing to collect signatures for a future referendum and to evaluate appeals also to the Constitutional Court even if undoubtedly the opposition led by the Democrats has a short memory, given the initial position on differentiated autonomy, which for some Northern Democratic Party governors such as Stefano Bonaccini from Emilia liked him a lot. Certain, in the centre-right the issue does not fail to arouse divisions and doubts, such as those within Forza Italia itself led by Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani, perfectly aware of the fact that the fortunes of Forza Italia, including the electoral ones, are attributable above all to the performances in the South, first and foremost to that of the Calabrian party. But the feeling remains of a center-left that plays practically all the comedy parts on the issue of differentiated autonomy. Translated to a territorial level, the attitude of the democrats translates into the attack on the governor of Calabria Roberto Occhiuto, national deputy secretary of Forza Italia, defining Occhiuto’s position – rather critical compared to that of the League – as “ambiguous, hypocritical and late.” But reality, even documentary, says the exact opposite, it says for example that Occhiuto has highlighted his doubts about differentiated autonomy for some time and above all in unsuspecting times, to be precise from 2 March 2023at the Conference of the Regions: that day Occhiuto’s position was born, which has now gone down in the annals as the “No money no party” position, that is – it was and is Occhiuto’s reasoning – “no prejudice on differentiated autonomy but up to when the necessary resources to avoid negative effects on the weaker regions are not identified and found, the issue is essentially academic”.
The session of the Conference of Regions on 2 March 2023
Here’s what the summary report says, or rather the minutes of the meeting of the Conference of Regions on 2 March 2023. «… For the President of the Calabria Region Roberto Occhiuto – we read in the minutes – the bill starts a process that does not only concern 116, therefore differentiated autonomy, which is also a possibility offered by the Constitution, thanks to the reform produced by the centre-left. The process, which begins with the bill, also aims to ensure that LEPs, therefore social and civil rights, are defined according to costs and standard needs. Today they are called to express an opinion on a bill which concerns the overall implementation of this part of the Constitution. If they expressed a contrary opinion, this would evidently be equivalent to saying that they are prejudicially opposed to implementing this part of the Constitution, both in the part that concerns differentiated autonomy, 116, and in the part that concerns the overcoming of historical expenditure, 117. has an ideologically adverse approach to differentiated autonomy, indeed, he reiterated that for example in some matters your Region could also receive benefits from differentiated autonomy, provided that the LEPs are defined first, no longer according to the criterion of historical expenditure, but according to standard costs and standard needs. Then, there is a very broad debate on this in the country and some Northern regions, for example, argue that the historic spending would favor the south, even if this is not the case. Indeed, the historic expenditure would penalize the Southern Regions. If we went in the direction of overcoming the issue through a bill, which on the one hand aims to activate what is contained in article 116 of the Constitution and on the other intends to resolve the problem present in article 117, the process could produce positive effects for everyone . It is clear that in a few months from now the issue will be related to resources and quantifying the cost of this implementation process, because when we move from historical expenditure to requirements and standard costs, it is clear that there are costs. Therefore, that will be the decisive moment to understand if this path, which begins today, can find its definition and conclusion. Furthermore – finally reports the minutes of the meeting of the Conference of Regions on 2 March 2023 – the text of this bill is significantly improved compared to the first version. We need to say whether they are willing to accept the challenge of implementing 116 and 117. So your personal opinion is that a favorable opinion can be expressed on this text, but the final judgment can only be expressed when they have quantified the necessary resources… ». ([email protected])
Corriere della Calabria is also on WhatsApp. Enough click here to subscribe to the channel and always be updated
