“I confirm the government’s will not to abandon workers, pensioners, businesses,” said Prime Minister Mario Draghi while meeting the secretaries of CGIL, CISL and UIL at Palazzo Chigi. On the table at that time there was the so-called aid decree bis, a package worth 14.3 billion euros in total. It was July 27, the government had resigned for a week, the chambers were dissolved. Yet space has been found for a measure that is worth a financial maneuver and that will arrive on the table of the council of ministers within a few days. In short, the current one is a strange political crisis. If it weren’t for the background noise of the election campaign, looking at the calendar commitments of the government and parliament it would seem almost non-existent.
That this was the climate had been clear for some time, at least from the day the prime minister resigned. To his ministers gathered at Palazzo Chigi, Draghi said: “There will still be time for greetings. Now let’s get back to work ”. The international context, the economic crisis, the social and health emergency do not have the same timing as the government crises, and at that moment it was clear to everyone that an act of political realism would be necessary. That act has also translated into an interpretation that makes the boundaries of the rules governing political crises, written and unwritten ones, very permeable.
A resigning government never stops its activity, as the continuity of the administration must be guaranteed. However, it must be limited to ordinary administration, the so-called handling of current affairs. It is a ritual formula with which we refer to the activities necessary for the life of the state, and which therefore cannot be interrupted. If necessary, recourse to law decrees is allowed. With some exceptions, it is not possible to present bills or acts that presuppose political discretion, since at this stage the government normally no longer has the necessary legitimacy, having resigned and having broken the relationship of trust with the parliament.
In concrete terms, the perimeter within which this government will be able to move up to the establishment of the next has been defined with a circular signed by Draghi himself. Among the activities permitted there are also “the legislative, regulatory and administrative acts necessary to deal with national emergencies, emergencies deriving from the international crisis and the epidemiological situation due to covid-19. The government also remains committed to the legislative, regulatory and administrative implementation of the NRP and the Plan for complementary investments (PNC) ”. In short, within that perimeter, compared to the usual interpretation of the concept of current business, there is ample room for maneuver. Far too broad, according to some observers.
The question would normally have been resolved with a discussion between jurists. All in all, the Draghi government has resigned but not disheartened. There would therefore be a foothold to support a broader interpretation of the concept of current business. In reality, given the urgencies that Italy has to face, the solution can only be political. To dispel any doubts there are the words of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.
Addressing the Italians directly after signing the decree for the dissolution of the chambers, Mattarella explained that “the period we are going through does not allow for pauses” in the indispensable interventions to face the economic crisis and its repercussions on society, “to contain the effects of the war of Russia against Ukraine in terms of the security of Europe and of our country ”, and“ for the increasingly necessary collaboration at European and international level ”. These needs “are accompanied, with decisive importance, by the implementation within the agreed time frame of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, to which the necessary and substantial European support funds are conditional. Nor can the duty to continue fighting the pandemic be ignored ”. In short, the most qualifying points of the so-called Draghi agenda.
And they are, not surprisingly, the same points that the prime minister had recalled in his farewell to the ministers and on which Mattarella asked for “a constructive contribution” from everyone, “in the best interest of Italy”, despite the start of the electoral campaign.
Even the parliament seems to have responded positively so far. The work schedule remains tight: just think of the obligations deriving from the bis aid decree, the simplifications decree, the infrastructure decree or the competition law. On Wednesday 27 the Senate also found time to approve the changes to its regulation, which became necessary after the cut in parliamentarians with the 2019 constitutional reform, then confirmed with a referendum in 2020.
But that is not all. After the dissolution and until the inauguration of the new parliament, the powers of the chambers are also extended, albeit with some limitations. The President of the Senate Maria Elisabetta Casellati recalled this. “As a result of the dissolution of the chambers”, he explained in the classroom, “the legislative activity of the assembly and of the commissions, according to parliamentary practice, will be limited to the examination of documents due, such as bills for the conversion of decrees and laws urgent related to international and EU obligations, such as the acts of implementation of the national recovery and resilience plan, as well as any draft laws on which there is a broad consensus “. It’s a pretty broad formula. Large enough to hold, if necessary, much more than the due documents.
Thus, with a calendar that in fact remains what it was before Draghi’s resignation and the dissolution of the chambers and which is proceeding quickly these days, it is above all the tones of the electoral campaign that remind us that there is a government crisis. Matteo Salvini returned to be filmed surrounded by rosaries and sacred images, brandishing the desperation of migrants as an argument to try to snatch some from Giorgia Meloni. From Forza Italia, insults have arrived at the exponents of the party who have gone elsewhere: the minister Renato Brunetta was targeted for his physical appearance, while Silvio Berlusconi wished all the departing people: “May they rest in peace”. The litigation in the center left produced fewer insults but just as much noise.
But political activity does not seem to have been affected. On July 28, for example, a violent controversy raged over alleged talks – reported by the newspaper La Stampa and denied by Salvini – between a Salvini collaborator and an official of the Russian embassy on the exit of the League ministers from the Draghi government. In the same hours, the chamber authorized the debt request for 14.3 billion euros in 2022 made by the government to finance the bis aid decree, and the senate approved the infrastructure decree, which will have to go to the chamber for the green light definitive. Also on July 28, the council of ministers approved two decrees implementing the law to reform the civil trial and the trial office, which are among the commitments for the implementation of the NRP.
In short, the same parties that were attacking each other fiercely were voting together in the parliamentary halls. Furthermore, the scope of the so-called aid decree bis demonstrates the political strength – or even of political direction, also considering the measures it contains – that this government is still capable of exercising.
It remains to be seen whether this strength derives from its authority or has been granted to it by the parties, whose interest today is mainly aimed at the electoral campaign.
Once the bond of trust between parliament and government has disappeared, and that of mutual loyalty between parties that until yesterday militated in the same majority, everyone has their hands free. And this, for the moment, seems to be working, almost confirming the feeling that, after all, the crisis was not unwelcome to anyone. Not to political forces, but not even to Draghi.