The leadership of the Democratic Party unanimously approved the Renzi line but the minority did not participate in the vote and yet there are signs of rapprochement and thaw between the prime minister and his internal opposition. Renzi is convinced that the reform of the Senate, which is the cornerstone of the legislature, can be approved in Palazzo Madama by mid-October and that direct elections for future senators cannot be returned, but he does not fail to open glimmers for an agreement by stating what technical solutions can be found to reconcile the different parties involved.
On the key point of the reform of the Senate, namely on the fateful article 2 which indicates the methods for choosing the future Senate of autonomies, Renzi argued that "the direct election of future senators cannot exist because there has already been a reading in double compliant ", i.e. the text has already received the approval of the House and the Senate and the parliamentary procedure on constitutional laws excludes the possibility that in this case the text can be called into question because otherwise the debate and the legislative procedure would be endless , but the prime minister did not cut all bridges behind him and opened a path that was also appreciated by the head of the internal minority, Pierluigi Bersani.
“One can think – explained Renzi – of a mechanism for choosing future senators on the model of the 95 Tatarella regional law”, in practice leaving citizens the possibility of choosing the regional councilors who the Regions will then designate as senators.
However, Renzi spared no barbs at the president of the Senate Pietro Grassi, who, as everyone knows, has Bersan roots. "The president of the Senate - said the prime minister - has hinted that he could open up to the amendment of a law already approved with double compliance: if this were the case, it would be advisable to hold a meeting of the groups of the Chamber and the Senate" to decide what to do "because it would be a fact with unprecedented characteristics”.
Renzi was contemptuous with those who threaten splits or with those who speak of an authoritarian turn: "Whoever threatens splits - he said thinking of the Greek vote and the thud of Varoufakis but also addressing the internal left - of elections perishes". As for the authoritarian turn of the institutional reforms, he said that it can only be answered with a laugh because, unlike the previous reforms also imagined by the left but never approved, the one under discussion in the Senate does not in the least affect the powers of the Government and the Prime Minister.
In the next few days it will be understood whether the reform of the Senate will actually be able to pass the new exam of Palazzo Mdama, on which the fate not only of the reform itself but of the legislature and of the Renzi government depends.
