Reforms, Casellati: proposal by the summer – Corriere.it

Presidentialism was one of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s promises at the end-of-year press conference. And the Minister of Reforms Elisabetta Alberti Casellati punctually began the year by dictating the timing for the constitutional provision, promising: by the summer the government’s proposal should certainly be law. Oppositions have arisen.

“By the end of January – said the minister – I will finish the activity of listening to the political forces, including the opposition”. But the fear of minorities is that this hearing could only be a formality, that the executive wants to own the initiative at any cost.

After all, it was precisely in the press conference at the end of the year that Prime Minister Meloni did not rule out a bill on the initiative of the executive should the opposition aim to bury the provision.

«Up to now everything has been based on improvisation, sloppiness and internal lacerations. Government action has not gone beyond this up to now», is the dry note from the Nazarene. Where he adds: «The idea that the government and the majority can handle such a delicate and incandescent issue as that of constitutional reform makes your wrists tremble. Our opposition will be clear and rigorous.

Minister Alberti Casellati tries to be reassuring: «The proposal will be ready when I have listened to the positions and reasons of all the parliamentary groups, hoping to find a starting point. Since it is a constitutional reform, the goal is to achieve it all together with the greatest possible sharing».

But the barricades are rising from the opposition. Matteo Richetti, group leader in Montecitorio of the Third pole, warns the executive: “No one thinks of making the Quirinale a battleground and electoral dispute”. From the front of the Alliance Verdi and the Italian Left, the voice of Filiberto Zaratti, group leader in the Constitutional Affairs commission of the Chamber, rises: «We will move in the wake of the Constitution of ’48, defending every democratic space and against the culture of man only under the command ».

But the road to the government now seems to have been traced. Forza Italia minister adds: «I believe that our country is now ripe for a constitutional reform that goes in the direction of the direct election of the President of the Republic or of the Council. Our commitment – she concludes – can only be to implement a harmonious and shared reform that can make our Constitution even stronger ».

The Minister of Relations with Parliament Luca Ciriani confirms the words of the former president of the Senate: «The transformation of our program into government acts awaits us, an enormous job. In January, our priority is to start institutional reforms: that of the form of government, identifying the best solution to give political stability to the country”.