Nerves tense in the majority, Forza Italia blows up Meloni’s control room

ROME – “The control room? The controversy does not exist, we are talking about nothing: that is, a proposal that has not been followed up”. Like this Francesco Lollobrigida, head of delegation of the Brothers of Italy makes it known that the initiative of discord – a political coordination to untie the knots of the maneuver – was shipwrecked even before setting sail. Lollobrigida, with the assent of the premier Giorgia Melonihad spoken about it on Wednesday to the allies to override the problems that arose from the high number of amendments and from the preliminary rulings which above all Silvio Berlusconi had place. Just Forza Italia, a few hours after the summit, had expressed perplexity about the minister’s proposal, considering that there is already a seat for coordinating the work on the maneuver, the Budget commission chaired by a blue deputy, Giuseppe Mangialavori. And even from the Third Pole there are those who have raised their index finger: “You write control room but you read divisions in the majority”, says the former minister Mariastella Gelmini.

Meloni, who needs to tighten the times to avoid the provisional exercise and evidently trusts his allies up to a certain point, had found a comfortable way out in the control room. But the resistance has induced the prime minister and the elders of the Brothers of Italy to leave everything as it is. The screening of the more than three thousand amendments presented will be done in the Budget Committee: the place where the proposals “which will be signaled and accepted by the government” will be examined.

It should be noted that whoever has filed the most – also in relation to the established ceiling of the two additional rules for each deputy – is always Forza Italia. Lollobrigida minimizes: “My proposal goes beyond the decisions on the stability law: I had suggested a permanent table of confrontation between the main forces of the coalition. I see no difficulty on this. In any case, there have been no developments: the idea there is no specific control room for the manoeuvre”. Or rather: it’s gone.

However, Berlusconi’s resistance to raising minimum pensions to 600 euros and to tax relief for those under the age of 34 remains. The centre-right Sherpas are at work to satisfy the requests. But the League with the undersecretary Claudius Durigon he sent a clear and negative message that irritated the Azzurri: for the minimum €600 “there aren’t the resources, we’ll do it during the legislature”. The hypothesis remains of guaranteeing checks of 600 euros only to some categories: to those with a low ISEE or to those who have turned 75, for example. While on the decontribution the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti he let it be known that there are margins for a “discount” of 6 to 8 thousand euros per hire.

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There is an underground tug of war, between Meloni and Forza Italia, also demonstrated by the request for clarifications that the premier, in the majority summit, made to the group leaders Alexander Cattaneo And Licia Ronzulli, on the tax shield for sports clubs: “It’s unsustainable,” said Meloni. Ronzulli specified that it is a personal initiative of Claudius Lotito.

It is in this political climate that the final bottleneck for the maneuver is approaching. The actual work, in the Budget Committee, will begin on Tuesday, while the text should arrive in the classroom by 20 December. The last deadline for approval also by the Senate – to avoid the provisional exercise – is December 31st. Date to be circled in red, for the Meloni government, because it is also the one within which the objectives set by the Pnrr must be achieved.

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