A "frank and cordial" meeting, which closes the (long) season of "Enrico stay calm" and the cold exchange of the bell in the changeover at Palazzo Chigi in 2013, but which remains interlocutory on the possibility of an effective common line to be pursued from here on, in the perspective Enrico Letta hoped for a large centre-left coalition, together with the 5 Stars. The new secretary of the Democratic Party therefore finally met with the leader of Italia Viva Matteo Renzi, who with the Democratic Party was part of the last government and also of the current one which supports the presidency of Mario Draghi. It is precisely on the latter that the maximum harmony between Letta and Renzi converges, who spoke to each other for the first time since 2014, in a confrontation that lasted about 40 minutes: Dragons don't touch.
On the rest, however, the obvious divisions have been confirmed: on the alliance with Giuseppe Conte's M5S, in particular, Renzi has vetoed, while Letta considers it essential to broaden the field of the center-left. “We have a different opinion, this was known: I believe that the positioning I imagine between now and 2023 is that I don't want to be with Salvini and Meloni on the right, nor with the grillini and populists on the left – said the leader of Italia viva in tv, in L'Aria which brings up La7 – Letta is looking for a strategic alliance with M5S and Conte, we will see who will be right in the next two years”. Has the M5S changed? “No, I just think they are very divided, more than us or the Democratic Party. They do what they believe, they were born from a Vaffa day and now they say they're being kind, they wanted two mandates and now they're fighting for the third, they wanted to leave the euro and now they're pro-Europeans, they didn't want the Olympics and now they're asking for big events. Letta says she wants to make a strategic alliance with them, we don't ”.
It is no longer a time for personal grievances, therefore, but not even for a full political reconciliation. Letta's goal is to build a coalition that is truly competitive with the center-right of Salvini and Meloni, capable of winning politics in 2023. But it will also depend on the electoral law with which you vote. The first test case, which the secretary of the Democratic Party and Renzi spoke about, is that of the next administrative elections, in the autumn. “In Turin, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Naples and in the Siena constituency for the substitutions to the Chamber, the M5s celebrates a failure. In my opinion that experience cannot be replicated, so I was in the Democratic Party I would not do the deal with the 5 Stars“, said Renzi who then was not even a diplomat on Rome: “Between Calenda and Raggi with my eyes closed I vote for Calenda. In Milan there is Sala and well, in Rome I only see candidates, in Naples the same. So I would ask a very good mayor like Isabella Conti to be mayor of Bologna, if we want to talk about content".
