It’s an all-Italian story, a puzzle made up of legal quibbles, bureaucracy, country hatred, private interests, secular parochialism, a good story to write a film if it weren’t true and certified by stamped papers and the intervention of the judiciary. On 22 January, Calabria will be the protagonist of a referendum bordering on credibility: the TAR of Catanzaro has in fact rejected the appeal brought by the Municipality of Amantea against the announcement of the opening of the polls wanted by the same Region to define the new territorial boundaries of the fraction of Campora San Giovanni which, in the hypotheses supported by the association “Back to the origins of Temesa”, should first be annexed to the municipality of Serra d’Aiello and then favor the formation of a new territorial identity.
The mayor Vincenzo Pellegrino, represented by the lawyers Andrea Reggio D’Aci and Mariella Tripicchio, and above all following the path of common sense, had proposed the appeal on the basis of the numbers provided by the registry office of the local authority. The official, in fact, had certified that the population of the Municipality of Amantea counts 13,272 Italian citizens residing and that those who live in the section of the municipal territory that is located south of the Oliva river is 3,407 units, while that located north of the Oliva river reaches 9,865 units.
It is a meter-on-meter battle of one of the most fascinating areas of Calabria especially in terms of tourist value. But the challenge has the flavor of the script. The clash is political, territorial, but above all personal. And it can also be understood by reading the details of the bureaucracy that will accompany this improbable referendum. On the penultimate Sunday of January, in fact, the citizens of Camporese plus the residents of Coreca and Marinella are called to vote. But in the event of a split, the two fractions will still remain with Amantea, however their electors will participate in the referendum from which the rest of the citizens are excluded. The rebus is solved on the level of political regulation: Campora will not vote only as a territory (i.e. from the Oliva River down) but also as a constituency, which includes the other two territories. So far the question has remained in the ambit of technical legal wit, but the first civic question to which no one answers is linked to the debt situation in which the municipality of Amntea currently finds itself. There is talk of a difficulty close to 40 million euros. In the event that the referendum passes, how would that debt be distributed? Public money, on which silence falls.
The challenge between the promoters of the referendum and the leaders of the Municipality of Amantea has become incandescent in recent months. At the center of the debate, above all, a much-discussed detail on a technical-legal level: article 15 of the Tuel in fact (Consolidated Law on Local Authorities), according to which divisions that generate Municipalities with fewer than 10 thousand inhabitants are not permissible and, more demergers, mergers are encouraged. The eventual birth of Temesa would instead represent a fusion of territories, from which in any case a Municipality would derive with a population slightly greater than that of Campora (in total just under four thousand inhabitants). Amantea, on the contrary, would remain with 10,000 plus inhabitants. And on this point the clash becomes heated: the figure of the Municipality would leave no room for discussion: 13,272 resident citizens. Without the 3,000 and a little more of Campora, we would approach the parcelling out of the territory and the referendum would be inadmissible. However, reading on the sites most attentive to the Calabrian territory, reference is made to another number with the population of Amantea which would exceed 14 thousand units also counting foreign residents.
Finally, one last point risks paralyzing the referendum itself: paragraph 2 of article 8 of law 570 of 1962. In fact, this provision provides that the municipal councils must be fully renewed when, following changes such as the one underway in Amantea, the territories vary by a quarter of the population. This would be the case for Amantea, which would in any case lose a quarter of the population; but it would be so for Serra d’Aiello, whose population would increase at least seven times.
There are 13 days to go, but the story may never reach the conclusion of the polls: in fact, the judgment of the Council of State is awaited, which the Municipality of Amantea appealed to on 19 December last. History of an Italy that is hard to believe.