Campania: from the “frying fish pact” to the power system of the PD strongman
During the mandate of the governor of Campania Vincenzo De Luca the Cohesion Funds, the so-called former funds for underutilized areas, were really used for the celebration of caciocavallo, the bagpipe festival, the bean festival, the cicatiello festival, the scazzatiello festival and activities with the same impact, not exactly strategic? Many readers, for days, still insist on asking us if it is true.
TO Door to door, by Bruno Vespa, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni thus stigmatized the use of funds by the governor of Campania to “build consensus” in the territory, also saying that he wanted to introduce more restrictive measures, to agreement with the central State, for their destination.
It had caused a stir, a few days earlier, the demonstration in Rome, which ended in jostling with the police, again led by De Luca at the head of hundreds of mayors so that the government would sign up for the Cohesion Funds to be allocated to Campania.
DeLuca he has widespread power in the region, mainly due to his network of consensus and seems immovable from his roleto the point of having threatened to run independently for the government of the Region, even without the Democratic Party, if the party did not declare itself in favor of his third term as president (he has already held two).
De Luca replied virulently to Meloni: “There is an ongoing campaign of targeted aggression and falsification which always accompanies political aggression. We cannot give space to those who adopt a stracciarola style, made of vulgarity, approximation, arrogance and mystification”.
But the answer is yes, it's true, the Campania Region has allocated part of the Cohesion Funds for caciocavallo and company. The beneficiaries of the funds are the Campania Municipalities which in turn have private entrepreneurial entities among the implementers of the initiatives.
The Region, scheduled to begin on 12/17/2018, has allocated 28,000 euros to the Municipality of Corleto Monforte (Salerno), of which 3,000 from the Municipality, for the caciocavallo podolico and transhumance festival. Although in truth the approval plan is dated 2014-2020, therefore planned by the previous council, led by the centre-right. De Luca took office in 2015 and the funds were disbursed in 2018. It does not appear that the president went to great lengths to avoid disbursing them.
Same music for the festival scazzatiello, in its twelfth edition in 2017, 40,000 euros, to the Municipality of Aquara (Salerno). Identical figure in 2016, with another 40,000 euros. A long tradition.
For the international festival of Bagpipe and Ciaramella 78,500 euros were paid to the Municipality of Polla in 2018 (Salerno). For the same festival in 2017, at that time in its 33rd edition, 68,000 euros, of which 8,000 from the Municipality. Also in Polla in 2017, for Zampogna and Ciaramella another 57,754 of which more than 8,000 from the Municipality. 55,000 in 2020, of which 10,000 from the Municipality. In 2017 at the 33rd edition, a longer tradition than the scazzatiello.
153,500 euros arrived at the 2017 Quartino bean and potato festival in Volturara Irpina (Avellino) (of which 3,500 paid by the Municipality). Same sum in 2017.
And many other interventions of the same stature, widely distributed across the territory. What is certain is that the Campania Region has also carried out structural interventions with the Cohesion Funds.
But these are so small do they serve to build a widespread consensus, as Meloni says?
It should be evaluated.
Years ago the so-called “frying fish pact”, among professionals: rules and behaviors to build consensus in Campania. All very ironic, a fortuitous case that will certainly not represent the regional modus operandi.
But on 15 November 2016, the governor De Luca, in the midst of the electoral campaign for the Yes vote in the constitutional referendum wanted by Matteo Renzi at that time prime minister and the Democratic Party, met 300 local administrators at the Ramada hotel in Naples and explained how consensus is built , bringing entrepreneurs, politicians and people to the vote. DeLuca: “Let's take Franco Alfieri (one of the mayors, ed.), notorious for cronyism”. Laughs. “We know how he knows how to do his customers.” We don't believe it. “An organized, scientific, rational clientele as Christ commands. What a beautiful thing.” More laughter. “Here, Alfieri's commitment will be to get half of his fellow citizens to vote, 4,000 people out of 8,000. I want to see them en masse, armed, with flags, going to the polls to vote Yes. Franco, you see what Madonna must do, offer a fish fry, take them on boats, on yachts, do whatever the fuck you want, but don't come here with one less vote than you promised”. Everyone laughs. A moment of irony that certainly won't have anything to do with the concrete reality of land management, certainly, but which should be well listened to.
Alfieri ad Italian Business: “To say that De Luca used those funds from the South like that is bullshit is not true”
Francesco Alfieri, mayor of Capaccio Paestum and president of the Province of Salerno, to Italian Business:
“Trivialize by saying that De Luca used those funds, the Development and Cohesion Funds of the South, with that bullshit, isn't the truth. I think that institutions, when they speak, must speak seriouslynot with a electoral campaign language, vulgar and above all misleading. We need to be serious, we are playing with the future of the South and we are already in a state of disrepair, of now isolation and economic depression and all this political tussle is of no use to anyone”.
Explain to us
Francesco Alfieri
“Debasing the issue of the FSC, where infrastructures have been financed, 500 million euros have been financed for roads, to resolve an infrastructural gap and trivializing with those names that make you smile… is not good at all. The valorization of production places made like this, I believe they also do them in Val d'Aosta and Trentino Alto Adige”.
What do you think of that joke that De Luca made which was later called the “frying fish pact?”
What does this have to do with anything?
What does that have to do with it? In the sense that he says he explains how consensus is built…
“You don't know me… who am I, that's a joke, I'm mayor in the third different municipality. I've been a local administrator for 40 years and I'm known for implementing electoral programs, so for me commitments have become a duty which I punctually maintain”
So was De Luca's joke just a simple joke?
“It was just a joke, does a mayor who is elected to his second term with 90% of the votes become one because he offers fried foods? These are the things… as Meloni says them.
So De Luca's joke was, but were you present when De Luca said it?
“Yes, I was present. But I am the only administrator in Italy who has been mayor in three different municipalities, Torchiara, Acropoli and Capaccio, with an ever-growing consensus. You can come and see the communities I have administered, what changes they have made done in just a few years…”
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