The War of Autonomy? It is fought with studies. So Zaia created her own portal – Corriere.it

Background colour: bright yellow. A solomonic Lion of San Marco (with the open Gospel, symbol of peace in the iconography of the Serenissima) to welcome the visitor. And the thoughts of Luca Zaia with handwritten signature, in which Don Sturzo and Luigi Einaudi alternate, the first unsuspected proponents of autonomy. It is the Venetian “portal” dedicated to differentiated autonomy wanted by Zaia in which video pills from constitutionalists and tax law experts explain what the Veneto is asking for on the merits. Why an ad hoc portal? The trademark belongs to the Venetian president: «It will be the anti-Svimez» he said last year, presenting the initiative with a half smile.

Challenge between files

Call it, if you like, against information. The Veneto Region, tired of always playing defense, retaliating blow by blow to the cadenced broadsides of Svimez (but not only), has decided to tell its version of autonomy. The Association for the Development of Southern Industry directed by Luca Bianchi, known to all as Svimez, has always been the bearer of the doubts of the South. But, as demonstrated by the “slip” of the post on the Budget Office dossier published on the LinkedIn profile official of the Senate who “demolishes” autonomy, the “dossiers against” are a common thread that runs through the history of the country of the last six years without interruption, since, that is, Veneto and Lombardy snatched all the necessary yeses from the Court Constitutional arriving at plebiscitary referendum.

The instruments

The guerrilla with shots of studies and analysis sees in the field universities, study centers, rating agencies and other important pieces of the state bureaucracy. Starting with the Presidency of the Council. The year was 2019, the Conte I government and the Minister for Regional Affairs was the Northern League from Vicenza Erika Stefani. It is at the end of June, one year after the effective start of the legislature. The Venetians, galvanized by the appointment of Stefani in via della Stamperia, are hoping for it. Instead, a cold shower comes from the Dagl, the Department for legal and legislative affairs based in Palazzo Chigi.

Friendly fire

Here too, as in the Senate, one might say “friendly fire”. Dagl’s assessment in 12 pages on the reform in an autonomous key can be summarized in a few lines: “State spending will increase”. In an institutional déjà vu, it seems to read the “unverified draft of the Budget Office” of the Senate published a few days ago. The synthesis of pages and pages of studies “against” is always the same: entrusting the management of functions or entire subjects (23 are those that a Region can ask and that Veneto asks for all) would screw up the state accounts.

The resistance

The Northern League thesis, sublimated in the past few hours by the Minister for Regional Affairs Roberto Calderoli, is that the most stubborn resistance lurks in the vital nerve centers of Roman power. Calderoli put it this way: “MPs and ministers pass, officials stay”. The movement of opinion against the reform contained in Title V of the Constitution is varied, transversal to say the least. At the end of March, the Standard Poor’s rating agency explained that, yes, in effect autonomy would have “no effect on the budgets of the Regions, but it would increase the gaps between Regions”. And here we are at another leitmotif of the media war on reform. “Without full details on the reform – explains the S&P report – or on the extent of potential decentralization that the central government could accept, it is difficult to estimate the direct impact of the new legislation”. The uncertainty of the practical declination frightens analysts. Last April, the Public Accounts Observatory of the Catholic University also ventured into an analysis of autonomy, ending up rejecting it «for the financing system, based on partnerships at predetermined rates on large national taxes. This would benefit the Regions with a higher dynamic of the taxable bases to the detriment of the national community, forcing the State to chase with extra resources the imbalances that can thus be generated”. The thesis that Svimez has always supported. The title of one of the latest works of the study center is “Autonomy, the danger is creating a gap in citizenship”. “The reform of differentiated autonomy by Lega – explains director Bianchi – is in clear contrast with the approach of the Pnrr and risks crystallizing the gap between the Northern and Central-Southern Regions”.

The Venetian portal

The measure, in Venice, is full. So if it’s a matter of data warfare, Zaia deploys web designers and constitutionalists to create a web portal entirely dedicated to autonomy. An operation that also sees the collaboration of the University of Padua, Ca’ Foscari of Venice, the Cgia of Mestre and the Centro Studi Sintesi. It is certainly an encyclopedic site, where you can find all the official documents, analyses, data and insights that aim to refute all the theses according to which autonomy would bring about the “secession of the rich” and dismember the country.

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