“Without updating the institutions, the search for new policies is pointless”. In these words of Stefano Ceccanti, Full Professor of Comparative Law at the Sapienza University of Rome, an outstanding constitutionalist and former parliamentarian of the Democratic Party, there is all the passion of the scholar and at the same time of the politician used to getting to the heart of the problems. And constitutional reforms are one of the crucial areas in which the new Democratic Party has yet to demonstrate that it is up to the current challenge. This is what emerges from an appeal to reformism of the Pd that Ceccanti has launched in recent days together with Morando and Tonini with a clear recipient, which is the new party secretary Elly Schlein. "The alternation in the Meloni government is not the passive sum of social protests" clarifies, without too many words, Ceccanti in this interview with FIRSTonline.
Professor Ceccanti, a few days ago you, together with Enrico Morando and Giorgio Tonini, launched an appeal to the Democratic Party in Repubblica to avoid a maximalist drift by correcting the course of the Schlein secretariat in a reformist direction on some key points such as institutional reforms and the work: what exactly is the goal you set for yourself and realistically how many chances are there that the Democratic Party will recover a more markedly reformist line after a Congress that seemed to go in the opposite direction?
“In the big European centre-left parties there is a normal dialectic between positions which largely follows that of the Democratic Party. It's not that a Congress is a definitive sentence also because whoever wins is tested by the reality of the facts, i.e. on the effective capacity to carry out an effective alternation of Government, which does not derive from passive adherence to a sum of social protests. There are frequent cases of internal successes of maximalist, identity-based components, which however, after having galvanized a part of the electorate they belong to and emptied some allies, almost never win the actual elections. It took many years for the Labor Party to get competitive with Starmer again."
One of the points you criticize is that of labor policy because the increase in wages is, in Schlein's conception, unrelated to the growth of productivity but with regard to the fight against precariousness, your document does not comment on the Spanish model, so dear to Schlein even if it leaves companies a free hand for layoffs, and does not comment on the Jobs Act which Schlein clearly does not like but which, according to Istat, has produced a million more jobs: What is your position on these points?
“The point is not this or that law, this or that foreign model, which is always difficult to clone, at most it can be an inspiration, but first of all to keep in mind what Olof Palme said: to regularly shear the sheep of the market one must that it produced wool. There is by no means an automatism on the fact that wool is poured on everyone in the absence of a policy that pushes towards this outcome, the public authorities are certainly called to intervene to distribute the wool, but not to kill the sheep or make them sick . It is a question of making democratic institutions work well, not of eliminating the market. Secondly, the point on the labor market is whether we imagine creating new ways to cope with the inevitable transitions in working life, not trying to keep people glued to their jobs or passive systems of protection. Even the anomalies of low wages and low productivity must be addressed together, otherwise the sheep will fall ill instead of producing the wool to be distributed".
The shyness of the Schlein secretariat on constitutional reforms is at the heart of your criticisms, but what do you propose on the merits?
"There is a common thread that goes from Thesis 1 of the 1996 Olive Tree which was first of all not by chance the 1 because without updating the institutions the search for new policies goes in vain and which then built the idea of a non-elective premiership, but in which citizens, as Ruffilli said, actually choose a majority government, to then be protected against crises with appropriate constitutional mechanisms. Indeed, if we also want to go backwards, the 1994 PDS program spoke of "the explicit choice of the parliamentary majority and of the Prime Minister'".
Even Prime Minister Meloni, beyond the semi-presidential facade for electoral use, seems to be oriented towards the premiership and Matteo Renzi argues that the Democratic Party would be wrong to oppose the direct election of the premier on the model of the mayor of Italy: what do you think ?
“First of all, I think that after the results of the 2022 elections, which once again led to a government legitimized directly by the voters, reality pushes positively to perfect what is happening and therefore it is good to reflect on forms of premiership, of neo-parliamentarism, such as in the PDS program of 1994, in Thesis 1 of the Olive Tree and as in the Salvi text, the one precisely on the premiership which was the expression of the centre-left groups. An indication from the Premier on the ballot seems more reasonable to me, borrowing Cesare Salvi's solution, as an element incorporated in the choice of a majority. Direct elections would naturally lead to an election mechanism in all cases of resignations and no-confidence: a model that works well for Municipalities and Regions but is too rigid at a national level. The Premier's indication combined with the four German constitutional norms (trust in the Premier alone in a single Parliamentary Assembly, power to request the revocation of ministers, constructive distrust and power to request the dissolution if beaten on trust) would, I believe, be sufficient. I would like to point out in passing that at the D'Alema Bicameral these positions were also substantially supported by Rifondazione Comunista: the text presented by Cossutta, Bertinotti, Salvato and Marchetti envisaged the formalization of candidatures for the office of Prime Minister linked to the candidates for Parliament, trust in the sole prime minister, the power of revocation and the proposal for dissolution if based on trust".
If they ever go through, the constitutional reforms would seem to imply a new electoral law: what is your opinion? Will we return to the proportional system or to a more majority system?
“Proportional law without preventive coalitions is not suitable for Italy for the reasons already explained by Ruffilli: our unconstrained parties are unable to give life to legislative agreements around the leader indicated before the vote by the first party. This was also seen in the second party system, in the two cases prior to 2022 after indecisive elections: with the Letta government in 2013 and with the Conte government in 2018. The most suitable system for Italy is that of a reasonable form of bonus which allows direct legitimacy of executives, to be protected by German constitutional norms. The preventive coalitions with Ruffilli's prize and the German norms must go together”.
Professor, how does the Calderoli project on differentiated autonomy fit into the framework of the reforms? constitutional law and what is your thought on the matterto?
“Differentiated autonomy cannot be managed without a regionalist reform of the Senate, which is the real defect of Title V. A cooperative regionalism that does not have a parliamentary seat for cooperation in the Constitution does not work. So, you can't add implementation of another Title V piece without first remedying that gap.
You reformists categorically exclude splits from the Democratic Party and it is obvious that this is the case, but what time frame do you give yourself? How long will you wait to see if your criticisms have any hope of being received? Will the 2024 European elections be the watershed?
“There are no ultimatums, even in the past the Democratic Party has proven to be contestable. The leaderships remain strong if they are able to represent a credible perspective of alternation, otherwise the space for contestability opens up. The Democratic Party, in today's party system, is certainly not a party that can be satisfied with primacy within the enclosure of the opposition. Minority splits, on the other hand, distance the alternation because the credibility of the alternative government proposal does not really exist if it does not prevail in the major party".
