Surprise Patuanelli: “Reintroduce party financing”. Conte: “Just a personal opinion”
“It is necessary to reintroduce the public funding of parties”. Stefano Patuanelli’s words, reported by Corriere della Sera, open a case within the Movement which, since its inception, has made the battle for the costs of politics its banner. So much so that the words of Patuanelli, M5s group leader in the Senate, are taken up by the president Giuseppe Conte who indicates that it is a personal position: “Our Stefano Patuanelli expresses his completely personal opinion on the public funding of parties. I heard him and he explained that yours is a general and abstract discourse on parties and democracy. He clarified to me, however, that he would never sign a law for the public financing of parties in current Italy and with current politics “, Conte reveals on social networks. The story, according to today’s Corriere della Sera, however, he created a stir within the parliamentary group.
“I say it without going around it: the position of the M5S has always been and remains against the public financing of the parties. The M5S is the living demonstration that politics can be conducted without imposing costs on citizens. And that you can do politics without selling out your battles, in some cases putting yourself on the payroll of large lobbies or even foreign states, as some well-known parliamentarians do”, underlines the former prime minister.
For Conte, “iThe M5S continues to maintain another idea of politics, as evidenced by the facts: over 100 million euros we have given up between electoral reimbursements and allowances for elected officials; resources returned to citizens, businesses, schools; cutting of annuities (which the center-right now restores to the Senate) and of parliamentarians, with savings for the public coffers and therefore for the wallets of citizens. Compared to other political forces, we have always chosen a different path, certainly more tiring but which we will not give up. We will continue to wage our battles without imposing new costs on citizens but focusing on self-financing and, at most, on the free choice of individuals to want to support our battles financially, which are their battles. Like for example with the 2×1000. Which is a choice of the individual citizen to contribute to the action of a single political force, not a cost imposed by politics on people against their will. We will continue to do this, we will continue to be this”, concludes the M5s leader.
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