ROME.- The Italian Senate gave its first green light last Tuesday to the differentiated autonomy (differentiated autonomy), a bill that aims to give much more autonomy on key issues to the regions of Italy. This is the old dream and workhorse of the formerly separatist Northern League, a secessionist party created 27 years ago by Umberto Bossi who accused “thief Rome” of centralism – later it was renamed the League and has as its leader Matteo Salvini– and, according to the center-left opposition, it threatens to dramatically “split” Italy: with the poor regions of the South, increasingly poorer and the rich, of the North, increasingly richer.
Although the Northern League abandoned its idea of secession and forming an independent “Padania” years agoas it had at its dawn, He never left aside his demand for more freedom in the face of Roman centralism and bureaucracy.. It was within this framework that, in October 2017, in the prosperous regions of Veneto and Lombardy, governed by the League, consultative and non-binding referendums were held, in which the vast majority confirmed their desire for more autonomy.
It is in this breeding ground that Roberto Calderoli, Minister of Regional Affairs and old reference of the League, presented its controversial “differentiated autonomy” bill. This contemplates that the regions can make agreements with the State to assume or increase powers in matters that in some cases are exclusively in their hands, including health, education, university, research, social security, culture, infrastructure, civil protection and foreign trade.
The risk, detractors charge, is that in Italy there could in the future be, for example, 20 different school systems. and, above all, they can increase inequalities, which already exist, in many other relevant matters, including health.
Although to exorcise this, the bill provides for the implementation of the “Lep”, Italian acronym of “essential levels of benefits” relating to social rightsthat the government would have 24 months to identify and that should be guaranteed “above all the national territory”, but that would mean enormous costs for a country with minimal economic growth and serious public debt problems.
Last Tuesday, in a session that was considered by the League “a historic first step” – since the law still needs to pass through Deputies – there was chaos in the Senate. While some senators celebrated this first green light for the law (with 110 votes in favor, 64 against and 3 abstentions) with a old embroidered and gilded flag with the Lion of Saint Mark, symbol of Veneto, the opposition brought out the flags with the Italian “tricolore” and sang the national anthem to protest against a renamed project splits Italy (“destroys Italy”)because, according to their point of view, it “breaks” or “parts in two” the country.
Beyond the logical controversies, it was a first half victory for Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, vice-premier and Minister of Infrastructure of the right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni, with whom he maintains an internal rivalry in view of the elections to renew the European Parliament next June. Then, his group and the Brothers of Italy—the first political force in the country, the premier—will measure their strength and Salvini hopes by then to have managed to achieve autonomy, an old campaign promise of his party.
“It is a historic battle for the League and an important step towards a more modern and efficient country,” Salvini celebrated on his social networks, who knows that he did achieve this first approval of “differentiated autonomy” in the Senate It was thanks to the votes contributed by the Brothers of Italy, with whom they would have agreed, in exchange, to support the Meloni’s “premierate” projectthat is, for a constitutional reform that seeks to expand the powers of the prime minister.
