Francesco Boccia: “The right is united only by power, the 5S do not humble themselves for seats”

“This flop in the courtroom demonstrates the inconsistency and inadequacy of a majority stuck with glue, which for them is the lust for power.” Francesco Boccia, leader of the Democratic Party, author of the reform of the budget law, perceives a crunch from this political signal, “because these are cracks and cracks are usually an appetizer of collapses”.

But power holds the most disparate forces together, right?
«The issue is where a government made up of three right-wingers brought together out of a thirst for power without a vision of the country is taking us, which yesterday saw each other at work between the House and the Senate. While in one branch of Parliament the majority went under, something that had never happened before, on the Economic Document, in the other branch it desperately tried to take possession of other institutional boxes, to grab positions of power in the various branches of tax and administrative justice. This institutional prevarication which does not guarantee gender equality and the weight of the opposition is unacceptable ».

Really the majority has also joined with Conte’s 5 stars, with an understanding behind your back, or not?
«Each party is free of its choices, those who join in queue accept to be humiliated on a slippery slope, which is that of an armchair in exchange for a principle. And on this Elly Schlein’s Pd will be inflexible. What I can guarantee is that we will maintain this rigor in each institutional step. This is also why Enrico Borghi must resign from Copasir ».

But can’t the slide in the Chamber be classified as an accident without political implications as the premier says?
“If you want to minimize, you are making a mistake, which other prime ministers have made in the past. The political datum is that when a majority goes under there is always a problem even when it comes to sloppiness ».

And what’s the problem in this case?
«It is clear that Forza Italia and the Lega do not have the same vision as Fdi, nor the same interest, as demonstrated by the absences and also the positions that are taken: in every regulation, despite the fact that we are at the beginning of the legislature with a majority that would have the numbers to govern quietly, they often disagree.

For example?
«Even on the Cutro decree, the differences in assessments in the classroom, between Gasparri who recalled the international obligations and Undersecretary Molteni who angrily replied, ending with the still different positions of the Fdi, gave a sense of what kind of majority governs Italy . The only thing that unites them is to govern only through daily emergencies, fueling conflicts and social anger”.

The government struggles but does not fall in the polls: the prime minister’s party is always doing well. Why?
«But it is evident that this government, knowing that it is a minority in the country, answers only to the right-wing electorate. Hence the measures that no Italian with a vision of the future would have asked for, the rave decrees, against the NGOs, the Cutro decree. Each rule does not respond to a vision but to the Meloni electorate ».

Even the work decree of May 1st?
«Above all that and it is shameful that May 1st is used, when it would be appropriate to renew the memory on the centrality of work. Instead of responding to the work emergency, putting back into the pockets of the workers what they lose in purchasing power with 10 per cent inflation, instead of issuing a law on precariousness and job security, they issue a decree without having agreed with trade unions and with the regions. It is a provocation to fuel the rift in the country.”

More generally, can this incident yesterday, with the wound to the image of this government, weaken Italy’s negotiations in Europe on the stability pact?
«But on those tables they have already weakened by themselves, it is a government that sides with the Hungarian or Polish ultranationalists on the main dossiers. Those who, when we have to discuss Italian interests, are the first to not want to loosen the bonds, the toughest on austherity and migrants. And the most distressing thing is the Italian timidity on the reform of the stability pact, a knot that sees us playing on the sidelines and as a throw-in. And instead of wresting specific things, that is, undertaking a battle for debt and common defense in Europe, we are in a corner and this is the greatest weakness of the Meloni government”.