Aid decree that can “help” also the government
The tug-of-war between Draghi and Conte again this week ended in favor of the Prime Minister, but his plan to end the legislature with this majority, also recalled in the last press conference at Palazzo Chigi, seems to have, with each passing week, its hours counted.
The latest round was consummated around the Aid Decree: the Chamber compactly voted confidence. Point for Draghi. But Conte warned: in the Senate «we will see». And it will be precisely in Palazzo Madama, from Monday afternoon, that the real intentions of the Grillini will be understood.
The majority in these hours is agitated by three open games. The first, the one between Draghi and Conte, definitely the most insidious. Monday’s Senate vote on the aid decree could reveal the epilogue to the story of this legislature. The M5S belly, in fact, is pushing for an exit from the government, also to recover consensus in view of the next elections, but party President Giuseppe Conte blunts the hard line with continuous concessions to Draghi, perhaps also out of a sense of responsibility and national unity. At the last meeting he presented the unacceptable conditions of his support, but despite Draghi’s rejection of the aut aut logic, Conte averted a government crisis by voting confidence in the Chamber of Deputies on the Aid Decree. The spotlight now shifts to the Senate vote. And the predictions are complex, because in the Chamber there were many absences, especially among M5S and the Lega. Not only that, in the Senate the vote cannot be “unpacked”, so the political strategy of voting confidence but not the content of the decree will not be viable. It will therefore be a decisive test for Draghi.
The government therefore stands on fragile alchemy and may have its hours counted. In any case, the parties are organizing.
The Lega is divided by the internal faction of Economic Development Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti. Recompacting the two factions in recent days, at least apparently, has been the PD, with proposals on ius scholae and decriminalization of domestic cannabis cultivation. And signs of appeasement have come from many leading members of the party. However, the Lega is in a state of “permanent assembly”, searching for a common identity with which to present itself to voters. But the impression is that Salvini is looking for it in a “common enemy”, from the left to 5Stelle, and raising the tone with the government, demanding a change of pace. Giorgetti, on the other hand, would like to set it on a new basis, proposals that are more convincing and more consistent with the industrial interests of the North.
In the center, on the other hand, a subspecies of the “white whale” is moving, a soft area of the center, where moderate positions can be accommodated while leveraging a solid national territorial base, from north to south. An area in which, in addition to Di Maio and Sala, the various Toti, Calenda, Renzi and Brugnaro are moving. And could this be the third leg to support, eventually, a Draghi bis (Enrico Letta on Twitter denied that he was the one who hypothesized this formula), accompanying him to the end of the legislature in case the Movement leaves the majority?
One thing is certain. From Europe there is a close look at what is happening in Italy. Draghi represents a guarantee from a NRRP perspective and for diplomatic relations. As Claudio Tito wrote on Thursday in Repubblica, “the drafts of a government crisis that start in Rome, when they reach Belgium they become typhoons”. And Paolo Gentiloni, as European commissioner, confirms this: «We need stability», he warned.
The other thing that is certain is that this week the current parliamentary agon acquired the requirements to accrue the legislative life annuity.
Now, really, anything can happen.