All the group leaders of the Senate Foreign Affairs Commission, both from the majority and opposition forces, asked the president of Palazzo Madama, Elisabetta Casellati, for a meeting – explained by majority sources – to quickly resolve “the Petrocelli case”, president of the Foreign Commission, elected with the 5-star Movement but which the Movement itself said it wanted to expel for its pro-Russian positions, and of which all groups are calling for the resignation from the role at the head of the commission. The groups complain about the “impossibility” of the commission to be able to work.
Like the Gruber case
To resolve the issue, there are those who ask to refer to the affair of Senator Gruber. “Both the Five Star group and President Casellati herself should evaluate that case to restore dignity and authority to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee”. It is the hypothesis that a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission of Palazzo Madama would have indicated in recent hours, during one of the many meetings and tables that are being held to seek a way out of the Petrocelli case, the president of the third Commission of the Senate that despite the expulsion from his group and the criticism of all the parties, still remains at the helm of the Foreign Affairs. “During the 13th Legislature, Senator Renzo Gruber was removed from his parliamentary group and moved to another commission, thereby automatically forfeiting his elected office as deputy chairman of the commission” was added on the Gruber case.
Pharaoh (Iv), “the Five stars shed some light”
«On Petrocelli we ask Cinquestelle for clarity: is it inside or outside? Today the president of the transport commission, the grillino Coltorti even renewed his trust in his colleague Petrocelli. If we senators have not understood if Petrocelli is inside or outside, let alone the Italians. The result is that there is a total blockade of the Foreign Affairs Committee: today a meeting was called and then dismissed by a president who on paper no longer has the party’s trust in him. I personally wrote a letter to President Casellati to ask to call the council for the regulation as early as tomorrow and check the fastest procedures to get to the release of a fundamental body for the present moment. The Italian Parliament that sided with Ukraine in the middle of the war cannot be hostage to a president who has clear pro-Persian positions ». The president of the senators of Italy Viva Davide Faraone wrote in a note.
The impasse
Nobody wants Vito Petrocelli anymore as head of the Foreign Affairs Commission of Palazzo Madama, but it is impossible to discourage him. The indignation on the part of all political forces raised by the senator’s tweet on Liberation Day, (written with the Z that has become a symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine) collides with the wall of parliamentary regulations. In fact, in the Senate, there is no procedure that allows a Commission president to be removed from office. The only one who could break the deadlock, therefore, is the same parliamentarian, nicknamed comrade Petrov, who should resign from his post. A hypothesis that, at the moment, Petrocelli does not seem to take into consideration. The scenario of mass resignations from the Commission remains. A desertion that would force the President of the Senate Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati to dissolve the body and reconstitute it. There is only one precedent: that of Riccardo Villari, president of Rai surveillance between 2008 and 2009. After his expulsion from the Democratic Party, the presidents of the Chambers Gianfranco Fini and Renato Schifani dissolved the Commission. However, it was a non-permanent commission, for which the possibility of dissolution by the presidents of the Chamber and Senate is foreseen, something not clearly contemplated for the permanent committees.