One day after Matteo Renzi withdrew from the government the two ministers of his party, thus opening a serious political crisis in Italy with unforeseeable consequences, Fabiana Dadone, holder of the portfolio of Public Administrations, this «surreal» maneuver that «goes beyond all logic» remains unexplained. Member of the 5 Star Movement (M5E), the main political force of the alliance that supports the Executive, Dadone, 36, rules out both the call for early elections and the creation of a technical government or “improvised solutions and patched coalitions” . Instead, he is betting on an “organized consensus” so that Giuseppe Conte remains prime minister, which would mean adding another political bloc to the coalition, something that today seems complicated.
-How do you rate Renzi’s breakup? Is there a chance that the alliance with your party, Italia Viva, can be remade?
-I have no words. It is surreal and incomprehensible. Reality has exceeded imagination, it is something that goes beyond all logic. Italians are stunned. Look, about the contents you can always discuss, the measures can always be improved, but I have not heard a justification about this crisis that was not a mere pretext. With these conditions, it seems to me that there are few spaces to go back.
-How do you predict that this political crisis will end?
-We need stability and surely we can work on a relaunch in continuity. Italians ask us for quick and quality answers on the issues that matter to the country: vaccines, health protection, defense of our economy and, thanks to the European Recovery Fund, a broad look at what the Italy that will emerge from the pandemic should be like. Citizens have respected the toughest and most complicated rules and have endured great stress. I don’t think they deserve this mockery.
-Luigi Di Maio, Foreign Minister and former M5E leader, has made an appeal to the “European builders” of Parliament. Could the government go ahead only with the support of some senators and deputies from other parties who do not want the calling of early elections?
-All, including Conte, exclude improvised solutions and patched coalitions. An organized consensus is needed to achieve government action that continues to take charge of the enormous commitments that we are facing.
-Is it possible that a new government would be born without Conte as prime minister?
-As I said, you need continuity and stability. Conte has shown that he has everything it takes to lift the country out of the pandemic and project it into a future made of greater efficiency, competitiveness and equity.
-Would the M5E be favorable to holding early elections? What about the creation of a technical government or one that is born only with limited objectives?
-It is the Italians who do not want early elections. There are no technical governments or governments with limited objectives. There are only political governments that do the things that are needed and we are in a position to do them.
-The former Minister of Agriculture, Teresa Bellanova, a member of Renzi’s party, explained when announcing her resignation that the Government “does not have a program to finish the legislature.” Is that so?
-We have programs and projects that go beyond the life of the legislature, as long as they are shared. The Recovery Fund that we are sending to Parliament, to then be discussed with the social forces of the country, contains Italy’s vision for the next 10 or 20 years. I myself, as Minister of Public Administrations, have, for example, to accompany the revolution of distance work in the public function and launch an Agenda for Simplification, which is a program of actions set with precise dates to lighten the procedures bureaucratic and running until 2023. We are looking to the long term as we face the emergency.
-The M5E has been in power for two and a half years. What has been your greatest contribution to the country?
-I could cite a list of measures, such as the Citizenship Income or the Anti-Corruption Law, going through the jail for big evaders or the superbonus for those who make reforms in buildings to improve their energy efficiency and seismic resistance. Or also my Simplification decree, which entails a significant lightening of the bureaucracy. But more generally, the fundamental contribution of the M5E has been to open the buildings of power and put the country in the hands of ‘normal’ citizens, making it more sustainable, egalitarian and caring so that, truly, no one is left behind.
Conte will play it in Parliament
Giuseppe Conte gains time to try to weather the open political crisis with the resignation of the ministers of Matteo Renzi’s party, Italia Viva. The Italian Prime Minister met this Thursday with the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella, to inform him of the resignation and temporarily assume the portfolio of Agriculture, vacant after Renzi’s maneuver. Conte also promised to Mattarella to report next week in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies on the situation in which the government coalition remains, in a parliamentary minority due to the defection of Italia Viva. The prime minister thus opts to gamble in the Chambers, where he will need the support of a handful of opposition senators and deputies who are willing to save the Executive to avoid the calling of early elections. They are what in Italy is known as ‘responsible’. With them the Executive would try to cover the gap left in the coalition by the withdrawal of Italia Viva. Renzi’s formation, born from a split in the Democratic Party (PD) and for which only 3% of Italians would vote, has 18 senators and 30 deputies. It cannot be ruled out that some of those parliamentarians, who already betrayed the PD before, break once again party discipline to now abandon Renzi and support the continuity of the Government.
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