ROME A Capital with the powers of a Region. On paper, capable of legislating in all areas that mark the daily life of a citizen. Education and infrastructure, communication and transport, public finance. This time Giorgia Meloni he’s serious. And he has begun to get his head around the political game for his city, with his sights set already on 2026, on the election that will mark a great opportunity for his party: moving Rome to the centre-left, returning to governing at the Capitol.
Rome, the Meloni-Gualtieri axis on special powers: from energy to transport, the Capital will be like a Region
THE TEXT
A draft of the bill to entrust special powers to Rome has landed in the rooms of the legislative offices at Palazzo Chigi, which Il Messaggero is able to anticipate. It is the great promise of the right that today controls the government and wants to address an entirely Italian anomaly. Give the Eternal City the legislative and administrative functions and powers that finally place it on the same level as the great European metropolises and transform it, in fact, into the twenty-first region. The mission, we read in the draft text, is to recognize in Rome “peculiar conditions of regulatory, administrative and financial autonomy”. And ensure with an ordinary law “the resources necessary to finance the public functions assigned, in compliance with the budget balance”. In the incipit there is the real issue to be resolved: finding the funds to support the great leap of a city which over the years has seen businesses, institutions and skills migrate elsewhere, especially towards the large centers of the North. Without resources, the box remains empty.
THE MEETINGS
For this reason, a month ago, as anticipated by this newspaper, the owner of the Mef Giancarlo Giorgetti also sat at the limited government summit convened by Meloni together with the ministers Tajani, Calderoli and Casellati. Served to set the machine in motion, under the supervision of the prime minister. In the draft finalized at Palazzo Chigi, Rome is recognized as having the possibility of legislating “in derogation of the legislation of the Lazio Region” in all matters relating to article 117 of the Charter. Except six: «international relations and with the European Union of Regions», «health protection», savings banks and rural banks, «regional credit companies and land and agricultural credit institutions regional character”.
It is impossible to entrust such delicate matters tout-court to the Campidoglio and for this reason they will remain under the aegis of Pisana, to the Lazio Region of Francesco Rocca who has already had contacts on the reform with Meloni. But there is another significant innovation absent in the drafts submitted to Parliament, for the centre-right the one signed by the blue group leader in the Chamber Paolo Barelli stands out: the financial autonomy of the municipalities. In other words, government sources explain, the former constituencies will be able to draw up independent budgets and no longer derived from those of the Municipality. The details still need to be ironed out, it is likely that the green light for the reform will not arrive before the end of the summer.
But the game is first and foremost political. Having turned on a green light for the Northern League’s differentiated autonomy, Meloni asked his people to work on the law for Rome. The direction of the dossier, in the party, is in the hands of the Roman parliamentarians closest to the leader. There is no rush, they explain from the prime minister’s circle. The fear is that a reform approved in too short a timeframe will give an assist to the dem mayor Roberto Gualtieri, assigning him the powers of a super-capital right close to the vote which sees him as a viable re-candidate of the centre-left. He doesn’t even want to prevaricate, however, the Prime Minister who claims her Roman history in front of the faithful and therefore asks for commitment to a flagship reform of the Italian right. To tell the truth, she seemed made for a first appearance in the Council of Ministers on the eve of the European elections. Calderoli himself, Northern League minister and “father” of fiscal federalism, had drawn up a draft. Far too forceful, and here is the paradox: he in fact envisaged immediately assigning the powers of a Region to Rome, without intermediate steps.
Then the slowdown, the doubts that began to mount at Palazzo Chigi, in the confrontations between the Italian reform minister Casellati and Meloni’s legal advisor Francesco Saverio Marini. And the decision to provide for an ordinary law which will have to explain in detail which skills and above all which resources to hand over to the mayor of Rome, so as not to incur a rejection of the Consulta. The Prime Minister has been peremptory and must not stop the path of reform for the Capital Region. Enough and more to transform the Roman polls of 2026 into a political match that is anything but local.
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