Despite the requests for a step forward becoming more and more pressing, Elly Schlein’s position on her candidacy does not change: first the project, then the names. On this, he says «there is nothing new. First the project, then the team and lastly the names. I have been clear from the beginning” the candidacy “remains the last thing”. Words that let us imagine long times. Much more than the start of the campaign that the secretary has set with the stop in Cassino, Saturday 27 January. A choice with a strong symbolic meaning: it is the day of remembrance and the eightieth anniversary of the bombing of the abbey, one of the most dramatic events of the Second World War. Cassino will be the first of six stages, «six different symbolic places of the country, putting ourselves to work as a party, civil society, trade union forces and categories, experts and activists, to write together our project for Europe».
A road map that will culminate with the PSE congress in Rome on March 1st and 2nd. On that occasion, in addition to the names of the candidates, the official investiture of Nicolas Schmit as the PES candidate for the presidency of the European Commission will also arrive. Whether Schlein will be in the game will be known on that occasion. Or right before. Because, as MP Toni Ricciardi recalls, “the secretary will choose”, but always through a “confrontation within the statutory bodies of the party”. That is, a management meeting. At the moment the convening of the Dem parliament is not on the horizon, but the Dems are already divided between those in favor and those against Schlein’s entry into the field.
The mayors of Pesaro and Florence, Matteo Ricci and Dario Nardella, say they are in favor of Schlein’s entry into the field, as is the deputy and vice president of the party Chiara Gribaudo. The No front is broader, led by Stefano Bonaccini, but which has found an important ‘testimonial’ in Romano Prodi. What everyone, or almost everyone, agrees on is that Schlein should stop delaying as soon as possible, in one sense or another. Schlein continues to wait and continue with the line «first the project, then the names». And this despite the fact that the start of contacts between Meloni and Schlein’s staff had made even the deputies present at the seminar on Europe in Gubbio think that the white smoke was now imminent.
