The showdown in the League started with a sort of armed truce awaiting the December assembly. The first round is therefore won by Matteo Salvini by putting the “rebels” in line. First of all his deputy, Giancarlo Giorgetti. “I listen to everyone and decide, as I always do,” announces the secretary arriving in the Chamber for the Federal Council of the party, convened 24 hours earlier. In a very armored “Salvadori” room and absolutely off limits to almost anyone, the “captain” speaks for 50 minutes. And underline the need to be compact and stay on the facts.
Silencing internal dissent
«I’m interested in talking about flat taxes or bonuses for separated parents. I am passionate about concrete topics. Nothing else », he insists. Convinced that “the vision of the League is winning”. Then, as the party says, everyone – including Giorgetti – expresses “total confidence in the activity, vision and strategy of the leader”. In addition to the two duelists, at the meeting there are the third deputy secretary Lorenzo Fontana, the group leaders of the Chamber and Senate and the regional commissioners. The governors are online on video, from Zaia to Fedriga. For the leader, however, the goal seems to have been achieved: to reiterate to everyone that the party line of via Bellerio is given by him, not by others. From taxes to work, which they want to defend in the maneuver, up to the new sovereign group to be built in Europe. The watchword is now to silence any rumor of internal divisions and cracks. Indeed, after Giorgetti’s latest very hard outings, bordering on the grotesque with the comparison with Bud Spencer, it is necessary to stop immediately the “governist” current that continues to distance itself, beating the line of “struggle” that Salvini alternates with that of government.
The timing of the comparison
The result is therefore the armed truce that should last a month or so, until the programmatic assembly scheduled for 11 and 12 December (with parliamentarians, governors, mayors, government officials and MEPs), will not pull the strings. on the strategic line of the party. Salvini defines it as an opportunity to “sanction, update and decide the tracks on which we travel”. Frozen battle but high tension, despite appearances. The Minister of Economic Development seems to shrug. Three hours earlier, in the Senate for question time, he merely said that he does not know what will happen. Then he plays down by citing his Lombard soul: «Today for me it is only San Carlo, which is the most important thing» aka that San Carlo Borromeo who is the patron saint of Lombardy.
Melons: no to repercussions on the center-right
To be on the board, the number two of the Lega renounces the presentation of the book by Maurizio Molinari, at the same time. But he does not arrive at Montecitorio together with Salvini (who enters with the other deputy Andrea Crippa), but from a secondary entrance, directly from Palazzo Chigi after the Council of Ministers. Ally Giorgia Meloni also diminishes the tensions, who does not go into detail about the disputes of others but admits: “I don’t think it has repercussions on the unity of the center-right,” says the leader of the Brothers of Italy.
Focus on tax cuts
Above all, the Council discusses maneuvering and the maximum commitment on tax cuts: “Nine billion to give citizenship income to crafty and tax evaders is not respectful for those who toil and work – harangue his Salvini – we will intervene in the House to divert tax cuts a part of those billions ». And he also warns about Europe. «The EPP has never been so weak, it is unthinkable to join the People’s Party also because it is subordinate to the left. And we are alternatives to the left ». As if to say that the road traced together with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Polish Mateusz Morawiecki is marked. And it is certainly far from that suggested by Giorgetti.