Come on Italy, yes to the 2022 budget but the 90 million debt node remains

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Giorgia Meloni anticipated the times. The premier wanted to go to Milan last night to pay homage to the body of Silvio Berlusconi. With her but in another car, Matteo Salvini. Before that, Antonio Tajani had also arrived at Villa San Martino. The disappearance of the Knight also requires the utmost attention politically. Forza Italia is in the spotlight. No one at this moment is able to predict what will happen. But the implosion of the party, less than a year from the European elections, would also be a problem for the government and the prime minister.

Yesterday, at lunchtime, the blue presidency took place. On the agenda is the approval of the 2022 budget which must be sent to Parliament by tomorrow. Only the treasurer Alfredo Messina and the former deputy Sestino Giacomoni were present in the headquarters in Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, all the others, starting from Tajani, were connected remotely. The meeting lasted less than an hour. Just enough time to highlight that million more who avoided a new red but also at the same time the confirmation of the ballast of over 90 million in debt that the party owes to the Berlusconi family. More money than ever – this is taken for granted – can be returned but which confirms how much the blue party is linked to the decisions of the founder’s children, who – at the invitation of their father – have contributed to financing the movement in recent years. The question Fi is asking now is whether Marina and her brothers intend to continue supporting them in the future as well.

At this moment the answer is still not there. Also because the sine qua non is that Forza Italia is able to survive, even before financially, politically. Yesterday’s decision to proceed with appointments and receiverships on the eve of Berlusconi’s funeral was seen by many in a very critical way. Above all because they are considered unidirectional choices, in the sense that they would favor Azzurri exponents close to the ex premier’s partner, Marta Fascina, and to the azzurri coordinator and foreign minister Antonio Tajani, who during the meeting however recalled that these are known indications and already decided by Berlusconi to which it was precisely for this reason that we wanted to follow up. Among the new positions, the appointment of Tullio Ferrante, very close to Fascina, as head of membership, and that of Alessandro Battilocchio, a deputy who has always been considered a loyalist of Tajani, as electoral manager, stands out.

But also the commissioner of Pavia, the city of Ronzulli’s Alessandro Cattaneo who had already been replaced at the helm of the blue deputies and who had already expressed himself critically on the commissioner of Pavia in recent days. Cattaneo, present at the meeting yesterday, remained silent like all the other participants. But they are not reassuring silences. Ronzulli – yesterday in Arcore for his last farewell – avoids controversy. “The thing that the Forza Italia community must do is certainly continue the path that he has traced” and this also translates into “support for the government which has always been out of the question”, assures the parent company to the Senate, noting that “if we were to if we split up we would be doing him an injustice.’ And this is the mood that the forzisti want to convey.

The fear of implosion is perceived as a danger for everyone. «Forza Italia is essential in the European and Italian framework. Our allies, at the moment, have important numbers, but Forza Italia is needed for what it represents”, reiterates the vice president of the Senate Maurizio Gasparri, making explicit reference to belonging to Berlusconi’s party, the only one among the political forces Italian, to the Ppe. An aspect that Giorgia Meloni certainly holds in high consideration.