Differentiated Autonomy: Puglia has requested the withdrawal of the Calderoli bill
“Puglia has expressed an opinion against the Calderoli bill and has asked for its withdrawal”, declared the president of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano and vice president of Conference of the Regionsat the end of the Conference of the Regions on the bill for the implementation of the differentiated Autonomy of the Regions with ordinary statute.
“We have the impression – said Emiliano – of the continuous acceleration of a process whose outcome is unknown. We risk soon having a country in which a company, a family, a citizen, moving throughout the country, runs the risk of having as an interlocutor, for very important matters, sometimes the State and sometimes the Regions, both from a legislative point of view, than administrative”.
“There is a risk of crushing all Italian municipalities under the weight of regions that will become omnipotent. And this – Emiliano concluded – does not correspond to the design of the constitutional legislator or even to a criterion of good administration. For these reasons, Puglia, to protect the municipalities and to protect national unity, has asked for the withdrawal of the Calderoli bill”.
Together with Puglia, the regions of Campania, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany also expressed a contrary opinion. And in this regard the president of the Conference of Regions and governor of Friuli Venezia Giulia Massimiliano Fedriga commented: “Some regions have differentiated themselves from the majorityI hope that with the continuation of the process that will see the implementation of differentiated autonomy, a recomposition can be found with the regions that today expressed a contrary opinion”.
Also Francesco Boccia, senator of the Democratic Party and former interlocutor minister of the Regions on the differentiated autonomy projectcommented the outcome at the Conference of Regions: “Minister Calderoli is not satisfied with the rift produced in the country, now he divides the Conferences and splits the tables of Regions and Municipalities. If there is a priority institutional valuewhich has always been preserved, is the unanimous work of the territorial Autonomies in the State-Regions Conference and in the Unified Conference”.
“The government on Calderoli’s Autonomy Bill first ignores Regions and local authorities and brings the provision to the Council of Ministers, announcing an approval that never actually took place formally; then, aware of the institutional gaffe, he did not send the text (why never approved) to Parliament, but goes back and transmits the text that had only received applause in the CDM at the State-Regions and Unificata conferences. Today’s result is that the Meloni government instead of obtaining ‘the agreement’ (as is the case for shared bills and provisions that affect the life of Regions, Provinces and Municipalities) split the Conferences, ending with the majority vote between the Regions and without any vote for Municipalities and Provinces which, however, suspend the opinion”.
“Today there is yet another serious institutional rift – insists Boccia – which Calderoli tries to cover up by also falsifying public communicationspeaking of approval. There is no ‘Entente’. For the Conferences either there is an understanding or there isn’t. And on such a delicate measure for the life of the country, the Meloni government has decided to go ahead with its head down. We will be consistent in Parliament. We also find the lack of preventive debate on the bill splits Italy by the regional councils of the Regions, which have given their assent, serious. In the coming days we will ask all the council groups of the Democratic Party to hold accountability in their respective regional councils to the Presidents who voted in favour. Above all, the southern regions, those with a high density of inland and mountain areas with centre-right leadership, will have to publicly justify their favorable vote on a measure that will cause obvious social and economic damage”.
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Published on the topic: Differentiated autunomia, Igazio Zullo (FdI): ‘The centre-left wanted it’
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