Prime Minister Mario Monti's first commitments concerned what we could call the external front: Europe, the first meetings with Barroso and Van Rompuy in Brussels, and today's meetings in Strasbourg with Merkel and Sarkozy. Despite the storms that continue to cross the markets, Monti could only find the hopeful expectation of his interlocutors. After all, if Italy needs Europe, Europe needs Italy too. Naturally, also due to the many international commitments, the strong cohesion between Palazzo Chigi and the Quirinale could be seen, confirmed by Monti's visit to President Napolitano yesterday.
Starting tomorrow, however, the internal front will return to the fore: relations with the parties of a composite majority and therefore (by definition) far from cohesive with each other. Yet Monti knows that without the support of politics, his government would be destined to go a long way. It is no coincidence that in recent days, thanks to the appropriate contacts with the President of the Republic, but also with the presidents of the Chamber and Senate, Monti has tried to find a protective net for his government and the support of the institutions. Because he is well aware that the measures that the government will have to take (those that do not contain tears and blood, but significant sacrifices) will have to be promptly approved by Parliament. This is why Fini and Schifani have taken care to ensure the appropriate preferential lanes for government measures. But if the institutional front appears sufficiently guaranteed for Monti, the same cannot be said for the more purely political, or rather party, front.
Let's think, for example, of the choice of undersecretaries which should be defined this weekend. It's true, once again the choice will be made between “technical” exponents. But it is by no means certain that the parties (in particular the PDL with regard to some departments such as Justice) do not want to speak up. And choosing so-called area technicians can be even more difficult than choosing pure politicians. We'll see if Monti's and Catricalà's bilateral contacts with the party secretaries will suffice. Foreseeing collegial meetings between political forces that continue to hold the past against each other can in fact become a risky choice. Difficulties can naturally arise, again on the party front, also as regards the definition of the measures to be undertaken to counter the crisis and support growth.
In fact, there is no doubt that capital assets (however contained) and new taxes can give rise to the centre-right, just as measures on exit flexibility and the pension system can encounter strong resistance from the centre-left. And the clash within the Democratic Party between the liberal Bianco and the economic manager Fassina is certainly not a good sign. What is certain is that Monti will have to mediate and not a little. After all, the new Prime Minister has already shown that he knows how to do it on this matter. But the greatest difficulties for the Monti government could arrive in mid-January when the Constitutional Court will rule on the admissibility of the referendum on the electoral law.
Whatever the judgment of the Consulta may be, the problem of putting Porcellum behind will come back to the fore. And someone (if the sentence is admissibility) could go back to asking for early elections to avoid the referendum. As has happened other times in the political history of our Republic. It would not be wrong if, without prejudice to the common commitment to support the Executive, the parties (especially the Pdl and Pd) tried to find a common solution that would give back to voters the right to choose their parliamentarians. The openings in this regard by the vice president of the PDL senators, Quagliariello, bode well. If this confrontation were to start, the Government would also benefit.
