Lega-Forza Italia, clash in Veneto: Azzurri outside the majority

“There is no holding back on autonomy”, and “if at a national level someone interprets the action in Parliament with the word ‘we will be vigilant’, I want to interpret it as the will to do well”, says the president of Veneto, Luca Zaia. But in reality the words of the secretary of Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani, (“We will monitor Autonomy”) had consequences. The Azzurri were kicked out by the centre-right majority. Sparks between Lega and FI in Veneto with a month and a half to go before the European and administrative elections.

As of this week, therefore, the three Forzista regional councilors have left the majority. There are no blue councilors in the Zaia council and the coalition seems to hold firm. But on a political level the split is now evident. It was the deputy prime minister’s sentence that ignited the fuse and the controversy Antonio Tajani: “We will monitor autonomy”. Words that Zaia did not like: “Parliament is sovereign. It is so in the timing and methods of treatment. Autonomy is a constitutional project, recognized by a ruling of the Court and a project of extreme transparency, for which it takes respect towards those who went to vote, including 2 million and 328 thousand Venetians. We await Parliament”, commented the Venetian governor.

What made matters worse and made the tension between the two allied parties rise even more were the words of Flavio Tosideputy and Venetian coordinator of Forza Italia: “On autonomy we worked on a balanced text shared by Meloni, Tajani and Salvini, therefore also by the League. Text that will become law and on which no majority party, least of all us, has presented amendments. Indeed, Forza Italia itself is the guarantor of autonomy, because it is a national party that expresses regional presidents both in the north and in the south and does not pose questions of territorial conflict – Tosi specified – Therefore we cannot understand Zaia’s sterile and unmotivated controversy, which screams for no reason. I don’t know, maybe Luca feels politically in difficulty, but lately he tends to lose the measures… It also happened to him at the end of his life, when he raised the tension in his majority and wrecked the bill…”. In any case, for Tosi, “facts count and not rumors. If there was a referendum in Veneto it is thanks to Forza Italia, which presented the bill that unblocked the consultation. However, I remember that the League’s proposal was quashed because it was unconstitutional. And if today, almost seven years after the referendum, we are really close to the finish line, it is thanks to us and to the centre-right parliamentary majority that supports the Meloni government, a government in which our secretary Tajani is deputy prime minister and minister”.

Now the Venetian deputy and coordinator of Forza Italia belittles the decision of the Northern League governor: “We have never been involved in the majority of Palazzo Balbi, because by Zaia’s decision Forza Italia has no councilor. A choice, that of Zaia, which sensationally breaks with the history of the centre-right. In fact, when the balance of power was reversed, Berlusconi and Forza Italia have always recognized dignity and representation to each ally, large or small. Today, however, we are not represented in the Council and we do not even express one presidency of the Commission in the Regional Council”.