Referendum 2025: no quorum reached, 140 million euros wasted. Meloni must now satisfy the electorate

Referendum 5, which aimed to simplify access to citizenship for young foreigners, was the one with the highest turnout, but stopped just below 30% , without reaching the quorum of 50%+1, if we consider the total votes, including those of Italians abroad :

No referendum question, including referendum 5, exceeded this threshold, with an overall turnout that disappointed expectations. Abroad, referendums on work recorded even fewer votes, highlighting a marked disinterest . The 140 million euros spent on these consultations are thus a wasted investment, in Italy and abroad. After all, what did our citizens living in Australia care about the labor regulations in Italy?

The government, strengthened by this flop, is considering tightening the rules and quorums for collecting signatures, made too easy by the introduction of the electronic signature. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking on Tg1, declared: "We probably need more signatures, also because we spent a lot of money to take ballots abroad that came back blank." The aim is to prevent the left from using referendums as political parades, proposing consultations destined to fail the quorum, with unsustainable costs for the State.

The secretary of the Cgil, Maurizio Landini, the undisputed protagonist of the referendum campaign more than Elly Schlein (PD) and Giuseppe Conte (M5S), defined the result as a “ starting point ”, despite the evident failure. An optimistic reading that clashes with reality: the lack of a quorum marks a defeat for the left, incapable of mobilizing the electorate. Not only that, speaking of the 14 million votes, as Schlein does, is pure smoke-spreading propaganda: the flagship referendum on citizenship saw little more than 9 million yes votes. … Too few, unless you aim to be in opposition forever.

Landini, the first to expose himself, seems to ignore that this “starting point” could instead be a “Point of arrival” or the end for the barricading left, which if it thinks of mobilizing the country with the sound of Palestine and the vote for immigrants is destined for bitter defeats. Even only 65% ​​of the left-wing citizens mobilized with rods voted for rapid citizenship for immigrants, and this shows that the leaders of the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and the Greens not only do not know the Italians, but not even their own base well. If they had proposed a referendum to eliminate the cap attached to plastic bottles, they probably would have won.

The debacle highlights a crisis of confidence in battles perceived as ideological and disconnected from real needs. The government now has the opportunity to respond with concrete reforms, such as citizenship by exam or bureaucratic simplification, to win back citizens, but it must have the courage to do so, without being hypnotized by losing pro-European battles. Dear Meloni, it is time to say something Italian, clear and precise, because now is the most difficult battle, that of bringing voters to the polls .

The left, on the other hand, must decide whether to evolve or continue on a path that Italians seem to reject. If you think that the transformation will be simple, you are wrong: maximalism always has an irresistible charm.

The article Referendum 2025: no quorum reached, 140 million euros wasted. Meloni must now satisfy the electorate comes from Scenari Economici .

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/referendum-2025-nessun-quorum-140-milioni-euro-sprecati/ on Tue, 10 Jun 2025 07:00:21 +0000.