“Today the third pole of reformism and government culture is born: we must build a possible alternative to populism and sovereignism “. This is the horizon of the MEP Carlo Calenda , today proclaimed national secretary of Action , the party he founded and which yesterday and today held its first congress in Rome. Immediately, he swept the field away from the neo-centrist impulses that animate the debate of parties such as Forza Italia and Italia Viva: “The big center does not exist, there is a pragmatic area that contains the great European political families. We say no to Fdi and M5s because with they do not govern themselves, because they say no to Europe, to vaccines “.
“and heirs of liberal democracy – explained the former minister – then they ask me ‘who are you with’
We are with Bonino, with Cottarelli, even if we have different sensitivities, pure liberals, but also progressive liberals like me, but also Catholics. But these cultures must not only coexist but also compete for leadership. There is no problem if currents are born. I am not a charismatic leader, we are liberals – he added – to women, which already makes me sick to say to women, I say that I hope that at the next congress there is a woman who will expel me from the leadership. Do this battle, but this is the last time I talk about women like that. At this moment there is my face, I bring this party to 20% and then I leave it to you. ”
Among the issues addressed from the stage, work: “In trade associations there is a game for those who ask for more. Under seven euros an hour no one has to work. Now we cannot say that we need more engineers and then we pay them 1,300 euros. Enough of working poverty. Not we are the party of Confindustria because we are the only ones to say so. Better a job paid for as a slave than nothing, and from a developing country, not a modern country “. On the tax side he said: “If I became prime minister I would say that there are 50 billion in tax evasion and that if you escape and evade you go to jail”. On constitutional reforms : “Two Chambers that will have the same tasks are not good. We are in favor of dry single chamberism”. Federalism _
“In the South it did not work, because the South was not able to elect capable and competent people” and “when the Regions do not work, the Regions must be commissioned: it is not possible that Calabrian health is from equatorial Africa”.
Calenda did not spare any blows to other political forces. Also to the PD leader Enrico Letta , who yesterday predicted an alliance between the Democratic Party and Action and the victory in the next elections, but with whom the unresolved knot of the alliance with the Cinquestelle remains, smoke in the eyes for the new secretary. After having again criticized this hypothesis of “wide field”, he stigmatized the recent participation in Atreju, the Brothers of Italy event: “They shout at fascism and then Letta lends himself to skits with Meloni,
The M5s president Giuseppe Conte after the closing of Action yesterday to a possible alliance had let the agencies filter that “creating jumble to aim only at the management of power without the real prospect of a government that really serves to change the country we do not care “. Calenda responds in kind: “He’s right, the wide field is a jumble. I don’t know if today he would choose to lead the Movement, I have nothing against him but we have a different way of seeing things”.
There was also heavy criticism of the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, who previously had been the holder of the Department of Economic Development, like Calenda himself a few years earlier: “Without responsibility in politics we will have the Argentine scenario. It cannot be that politics becomes distributing bonuses to everyone. Dear Di Maio, I will come as well at Parioli’s and not you, I sat at all the crisis tables, you were only there for two. I have the moral duty to serve “. However, speaking a few hours later at half an hour more on Rai3, the MEP seems to reopen a glimmer : “If the M5s does not become something else, if it embodies a culture that is not that of no to everything, then it is possible build something with them “.
There is also some for Matteo Renzi,in whose government Calenda was minister: “I believe him to be the best president since De Gasperi”, he affirms, and adds, moving on to the second person: “Of course we are together. But it is unthinkable that you are paid by a foreign state. Decide if you want to do politics or business. Those who do politics do not consult: they get money from their supporters “. And again: “To the people of Forza Italia who will find themselves with the neo-Nazis, I say come to our camp that is yours, what happened to you to be guided on the one hand by populists and on the other by right-wing extremists
”
In addition to the appointment di Calenda as secretary, the congress approved that of former Pd senator Matteo Richettias president: his deputies will be Emma Fattorini, in the last legislature at Palazzo Madama with the dem, and the councilor of the Municipality of Milan Giulia Pastorella. Treasurer and Enrico Squintani.
The audience paid a standing ovation to Emma Bonino: “I do not hide the difficulties. But these difficulties are political assets, not obstacles. Together we are richer, divided we are poorer”, said the radical leader on the federation between Action and + Europe. “Carlo, you have no party experience – he added, addressing Calenda directly – I can wish you well. I’ve had it for 40 years and the smaller the parties are, the more quarrelsome they are, not the other way around. You need self-control, counting up to Ten. I would like to get to one of our congresses in which at the half of that table there is the half of competent women. It is not that we want a woman. No, we want a competent person in the area of ​​his responsibility. It is not enough to be a woman to be better, but not men either. But many men think so, I don’t want to hear about professions for men. ”
Bonino, who in 2013 was foreign minister in the Letta government, brings attention to the most critical scenarios: “Someone still remembers Afghanistan
. It doesn’t appear. Yet we swore not to leave them alone. Many of my colleagues and as if they didn’t remember August, and we are only in February. We are not talking about Syria: never heard of it. Now we are focused on Ukraine, but a few days ago we were shaken by the thousands of refugees and refugees between Belarus and Poland, greeted by police fire hydrants, by barbed wire, by walls. Without shoes, without clothes, without anything. I wonder where they disappeared
Of course, they disappeared from the media. Because the first thing the regimes do not want are witnesses. The first to be expelled, during humanitarian crises, are the journalists, the media ,humanitarian associations“.
Inevitable a passage on the ruling of the Constitutional Court on referendum questions :” I lived like a punch in the stomach – says Bonino – a powerful, undeserved slap in the face of the inadmissibility of the Constitutional Court on euthanasia and cannabis. As a flash, reading that press release, I reviewed Coscioni, Welby and their families. Yet these questions have been verified and written by the most important constitutionalists of our country. In short, a little respect. Discrediting the opponent or the alleged person hurts and hurts me. However we will not give up “.
