Reforms as a conditio sine qua non for Italy's challenge to austerity, in a Europe where those populist parties are advancing and also collecting votes in Italy. This is the red thread that unites the many topics that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi touches on La Repubblica delle Idee, in a dialogue with Eugenio Scalfari who, in a finale all about the constitutional referendum and electoral law, sees the head of government admit that he " don't be in love with the Italicum” and announce that you are "ready to sign a bill" which, with the new institutional system in force, limits the premier's mandates to two.
Concepts that Renzi underlines by replying to Scalfari who announces his 'no' to reforms if he does not change the electoral law and reiterating how, with the victory of the no vote in the autumn, "Italy becomes ungovernable and nobody in Europe is in line anymore". And theitalicum? Perhaps, the dialogue with RepIdee comes out less armored than a few months ago. "I would have preferred the Mattarellum with tools to guarantee victory" Renzi admits, observing how yes in October will however be a yes to a constitutional reform that "lasts 30 years" when an "electoral law lasts much less". The Italicum, he goes on to explain, was the result of a discussion between several political forces but, at the moment, it is the only law that can guarantee the stable victory of "a party without small parties alongside it" whereas with the proportional system "a government lasts like a cat on the highway”. AND on the point of the 'appointed' (the leaders blocked) the prime minister observes how, "compared to the past and the previous electoral law they are much less".
The reforms, for Renzi, are also the indispensable basis for a battle that Italy, from August 2016 (when, on the 30th, there will be bilateral agreements with Angela Merkel) to March 2017 (when Rome will host the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the EU Treaties) undertakes to do for “changing the EU paradigm: more investments and less austerity”. A battle to which Italy must present itself more credible than ever and in the wake of a now completed reform package, observes Renzi, focusing instead on the difficulties of today's Europe. If populism advances "it is also because the EU does not work, because sometimes we are more concerned with banks and finances than with unemployment", explains the head of government according to whom, aeventual Brexit (about which he says he is skeptical about the polls circulating across the Channel) it will be "a disaster for the British but, in the medium and long term, it won't be a tragedy for the EU and Italy".
