At a certain point, the communicative whip appears. «France’, I advise you not to read anything, just read your mirror, don’t let yourself be influenced…». The speaker is Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the addressee is the center-right candidate at the head of the Lazio Region Francesco Rocca. But in reality it is a message that contains others. Because in denouncing the “low blows” that punctuated the electoral campaign, and which, as tradition dictates, will not end (“but we are vaccinated”, says the Prime Minister) there is also a message that goes beyond the regional dimension. “There is enormous hypocrisy in the fact that Francesco Rocca is attacked for his story by those who say that harsh prisons should be less harsh, that drugs should be legalized.” The reference is not only to the well-known story of the candidate’s youth (a history of drug trafficking for which he fully paid his debt to justice and which he himself immediately exposed to the media), but also to the controversies of those days.
Rocca, explains Meloni, is “an Italian excellence known throughout the world”, he is “the first Italian who managed to become president of the largest voluntary association in the world”. This is a bit of the meaning of the meeting that took place yesterday morning in Rome, in the Conciliazione auditorium. A meeting in which all the leaders of the centre-right gather, to serve as a driving force for Rocca and his team, but also to reaffirm the building of a coalition and the meaning of things done 100 days later, with a very difficult agenda, since the beginning of the government adventure. “Did they say that with our government Italy would be isolated? It is not possible to isolate Italy: it is the founder of Europe, of NATO, it is a rich country, a member of the G7. With this government, Italy is finally becoming aware of the centrality it can have», articulates Meloni, retracing the main topics addressed in recent months, from immigration to the economy to one of the “hottest” topics in the comparison, that is, the income of citizenship. «From the end of this year, whoever can work, will work. We will do our best to put these people in a position to work, promoting growth and new hires. But it’s another thing to hear “Meloni takes my rent and wants to tell me to steal”. Between income and theft, there is first the option of going to work…”.
There is also a passage about the confrontation around 41 bis: “The State – he says – should not deal with anyone who threatens”. And again, more generally: “If you have a short horizon, you seek consensus, if you have a long horizon, the answers will come in five years, because we’ll still be here.” Then I announce: “2023 will be the year of major reforms, we will go where we have not been able to go until now. We will give this nation a reform of institutions that will enable it to have government chosen by the citizens and enduring, and a reform of justice that will ensure certainty of law and certainty of punishment.”
Therefore, “doing” is in a way the leitmotif of the day. This can also be seen in the speech of Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the League Matteo Salvini, who traveled around Italy in these first months monitoring and opening construction sites. In the capital, explains the Minister of Infrastructure, “in the excavation of Metro C, a Roman barracks emerged: it will be moved and then relocated at the museum station. I thank the enlightened Superintendents, they are not all over the country. You cannot block high-speed trains in Puglia because there are almond trees. Then you move the almond trees elsewhere and continue with the construction site».
The other issue is coalition stability. «These first 100 days of government allowed me to meet intelligent colleagues, I count and I am sure that they will also become friends. This is the difference between doing well at work and thinking as a team», says Salvini. A point, this, also addressed by Forza Italia. Antonio Tajani, vice-president of the Board and national coordinator of the Azzurri, says: “Every morning I wake up and I’m happy and proud to have always been on the same side. We have common values, ours, of the center-right, is not a marriage of interest. We are united, there is a common vision of society».
Just like Silvio Berlusconi, who spoke via video link: “We will win, but we know that the hardest challenge will come later. They will try to divide us, they will attack us on everything, they will wait for our every little mistake to try to undermine the unity of the coalition. This is what is happening across the country. But they will not be able to divide us. That is why I tell you that we are going to win the challenge of the regional government”. Francesco Rocca closed the event: «From the territories comes a cry of pain for a region left to itself for 10 years». And again: “Let’s get back to programming. We have the ambition to be measurable, to make the starting point known and show where we are going to be in 5 years and then reach consensus for another 5». Health is at the top of the agenda: “Our citizens were left without dignity in emergency rooms with the longest waiting times in Italy: 3, 4, 5 days on a stretcher without dignity, with very few personnel doing what they can. They massacred health in our provinces ».
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
