Renzi dissolves Italia Viva, tonight the foundation stone for the united party with Calenda

ROME – Italia Viva is dead, long live Italia Viva. In his weekly e-news Matthew Renzi throw your heart over the obstacle. He writes that “on February 26, 2023, the journey that began on September 19, 2019 with the birth of Italia Viva ended. And am I sad? No, I’m enthusiastic about it”. Everything is about to change after the victory of Elly Schlein on Stefano Bonaccini leading the Democratic Party.

Now about the united party of reformists with Charles Calenda, Renzi is there too. And accelerate: in the autumn the project should be done. He reiterates: “Let’s accelerate on the single party for the great turning point, we will work on the symbol, manifesto and name”.

If the bet is to take pieces of the Democratic Party, well the Third Pole perhaps has to wait. But Renzi is sure that more than the exodus of managers, there will be an exodus of dem voters already at the 2024 Europeans.

For the party of the “reformists, the liberals, the democrats and the people” the time has come to lay the foundation stone.

This evening the political committee of the Third Pole is meeting, where the stages will be decided. Renzi should also be there, even though he is not formally part of it and this gives a measure of the importance of the appointment.

The body is small, chaired by Calenda and by the vice president Elena Bonetti, Renziana, former minister of Equal Opportunities, ex dem. Then there are the names of weight, five for Italia Viva (Teresa Bellanova, Ettore Rosato, Maria Elena Boschi, Davide Faraone and Luigi Marattin) and five for Azione (Mara Carfagna, Maria Stella Gelmini, Mario Raffaelli, Enrico Costa, Andrea Mazziotti, ), in addition to the group leaders Raffaella Paita and Matteo Richetti.

The path of the reformist party, already bumpy, should have an acceleration that for once the two partners Renzi and Calenda share.

Certainly some stakes must be placed. Bellanova does it, long experience and concreteness, former Minister of Agriculture and Deputy Minister of Economic Development, a past as a trade unionist, says: “Creating a party is not like setting the table. Nor is a party created to crown the leader. It is necessary make the management groups, histories, paths, territories grow and amalgamate. It’s not just the leadership that counts”. It’s the lunge.

Tensions are the order of the day between Renzi and Calenda, but both know very well that unity is strength and right now they cannot afford quarrels. Paita, the group leader in the Senate, reasons: “The road has been traced. We want to build a reformist and liberal house from below that is the answer to the populism of the right and left. We will compete in the European elections with a precise agenda: Europeanism, Atlanticism, guaranteeism , growth, merit, simplification. The Democratic Party has chosen a path that will be competitive with the 5Stelle but certainly will not be the home of reformists with Schlein”.

Rosato, after Beppe Fioroni’s farewell to Schlein’s Pd, admits: “It doesn’t surprise me, and yes, our doors are open” Open, he adds, to all Catholics including Giorgio Merlo, as well as Fioroni, who have organized a network of democratic Catholics. “Everything has changed in one week, so the slowdowns that could only have been valid five days ago are no longer valid”, is Rosato’s reflection. For which “a joint party of Italia Viva and Action is an irreversible path”.

Osvaldo Napoli, close to Calenda, insists on the need to expand, reiterating that it is “the time for the reformists”. Enlarging means welcoming associations and also +Europe, if the new leadership of Riccardo Magi, new secretary, and Federico Pizzarotti, new president, will want. In Friuli Venezia Giulia, where the regional elections are held on 2 and 3 April, Italia Viva-Azione-+Europa present themselves together with the three symbols in support of Alessandro Maran.