“We have been asking for a change for months. The communication that this is not the time to open a crisis has passed. But we think the opposite that this is an opportune time, now or never. We're playing for the future now, not in six months. We have been too patient, we have been asking for a change for months ”. In this passage, the leader of Italia Viva Matteo Renzi forcefully reiterated, during his speech in the Senate on the vote of confidence in the Conte government, his position towards the action of the majority, from which Italia Viva has just come out with the resignation of the two ministers Elena Bonetti and Teresa Bellanova. Renzi's harsh words seem to leave no more room for a collaboration and force Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to look for a "crowded majority in Parliament", as the Tuscan senator defined it: "I don't know if it will be the majority, but it will certainly be ragged".
At the beginning of his speech, Renzi recalled the three major crisis fronts that led to Italia Viva distancing itself from government action: the economic crisis, the health crisis, and Italy's great delay in school: " Our kids are the ones in Europe who have gone to class least of all. It's now or never because now the kids have to be sent back to school, not with money thrown away from wheelchairs but with vaccines. Which Next Generation Eu if we leave mountains of debt to our children? We will be cursed by our children if we don't invest in school and health care ”, thundered Renzi in a particularly energetic passage of his speech. “Mr. President, if you talk about a crisis it is incomprehensible, but this is not the most beautiful government in the world – he added -. We think there is a need for a stronger government, we don't think the narrative of the Italy model and of 'other countries copying us' is enough. An institutional crisis has not yet been opened because you have not resigned ”.
“I would have expected from you a great dream for the future of the country – continued Renzi, pressing Conte -, a horizon, a vision. She he was afraid to go up to the Quirinale the day after the resignation of the ministers of IV not because it is useful to the country, but because it has chosen an institutional castle". Renzi then listed some situations on the international scene: “Today is Trump's last night in Lincoln's room, tomorrow a new page opens with President Biden, with multilateralism. Biden has a great passion for Europe and for Italy. A few days ago Merkel and Macron closed an agreement with the European institutions together with China and we didn't even enter the game. Brexit now plays its challenge. Tourism in a few months, hopefully soon, I'll be ready to start again, there will be a big rebound that we must be ready to intercept".
Finally, other thrusts at Conte: “Who loses today? That page from the Malavoglia comes to mind, when zio Crocefisso receives the news that someone has died in battle. Who lost? And everyone says: 'I have not lost'. But Italy is missing its biggest opportunity since the Marshall Plan. President, take a step forward, don't turn this enormous opportunity into a mere distribution of tasks". “She lacked the political apprenticeship and imagines that politics is just the art of government. but this art is not just about distributing an armchair. He gave the impression that he was preoccupied with assigning assignments. He changed the third majority in three years, he governed with Matteo Salvini. Today I know that he is the point of reference for progressivism and I am happy with it, but he has signed the Salvini decrees and quota 100. He cannot change his ideas to keep his seat".
Finally, as had leaked out in the last few hours, Renzi indirectly confirmed the news that the prime minister had offered him an international job, probably the foreign ministry: "You have always been courteous to me, when we met he offered me a position at Foreign Affairs and I politely told her no. Politics is not just the distribution of tasks”.
"Of course there is a problem of numbers: if there aren't the government it goes home, it doesn't go ahead," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said later in his reply in the Senate Chamber, taking up the challenge launched by Renzi. “Did you feel that the control room was not acceptable? But when has it never been discussed? The result is that we now have to hurry and the work is urgent, because the EU also asks us for it. When you choose the path of dialogue, and you know it, you have never found closed doors ”, said the premier addressing the senators of Italy alive. “At a certain point – he continued – you chose the path of aggression and media attacks, you began to speak outside and not inside. We respect it but can we say that perhaps it is not the best choice in the interests of the country?”.
“A discussion was needed on Recovery, a collegial moment, because the problem of strategic choices remained, bringing out politics, giving a vision. But the collegial confrontation can also be done with calm tones and loyal collaboration ", he added With you. “The final effect was to block Recovery for 40 days while we could have met and in about twenty days given Parliament an updated version which has also been improved thanks to your contribution, but thanks to all the majority forces and no one can claim the truth in the most profitable solutions for the country " .
